ENTOZOA — GORDIACEA. 
293 
of them for pores. The second cuticular layer, which Berthold describes 
and figures as a tissue of meshes, composed of oblong nooses, the 
reporter could not find ; but, on the contrary, he saw a fibrous tissue 
lying under the epidermis, and connecting it with the muscular layer, 
and which might be compared with the corium. It consists of elastic 
yellow threads, crossing each other obliquely from right to left. These 
threads lie crowded together in quantity without number : each indivi- 
dual thread seems to run along the whole body of the worm without 
interruption, winding spirally either to right or left. If the cuticular 
layer be separated from the muscular beneath it, many threads of that 
described as the fibrous remain on the muscular layer, while more or 
less stick to the epidermis, and on its inner surface make a net-work of 
greater and smaller lozenges ; they also give a fibrous appearance to 
the torn or cut margins of the cuticular and muscular layers. Berthold 
has certainly seen these threads ; for, in describing the cuticular system 
of the Gordius, he here and there mentions fine threads, tender little 
fibres, &c. He describes the organs of motion, quite correctly, as a 
tolerably thick muscular layer lying under the cuticle, and inclosing the 
intestines like a tube : it is composed of longitudinal fibres. He could 
not precisely determine whether these stretch along the whole body of 
the worm, or are only short, and lie with their beginnings and ends 
behind and near each other, but conjectures the latter. The reporter is 
of the same opinion, since this muscular layer, when torn across, pre- 
sents a net of longitudinal meshes. The individual colourless unstriated 
muscular fibres, according to the reporter’s observation, resemble very 
thin ribbon-shaped stripes, which lie with their surfaces close to each 
other, and so form the muscular covering which glitters like satin. The 
reporter could not perceive the transverse fibres which should cover the 
longitudinal muscles externally ; but he has quite convinced himself, as 
well as Berthold has done, that the Gordius aquaticus, in its motions, 
keeps constantly one and the same length and thickness. With regard 
to the other organs of this animal, the results which the reporter drew 
from his investigations, differ so much from those of Berthold, that he 
will first premise these researches, in order afterwards to compare them 
with his own. Berthold believes that he has discovered the nervous 
system of the Gordius, to be two slender threads, not properly confined, 
running parallel beside each other under the intestinal canal. The dark 
longitudinal bands which run down the body, point out the position of 
the longitudinal vessels situated under the skin, one of which runs as an 
artery in the brown dorsal stripes, and two as veins beside each other in 
the abdominal stripe. With these vessels the above mentioned cuticulo- 
vascular net coheres ; and this, according to Berthold, is for the process 
of respiration. He had not seen traces of actual circulation of blood in 
this vascular system. The mouth of the animal is placed, eccentrically, 
337 Y 
