45° 
WORMS. 
the microscopic fungi growing in them. These worms now appear much rarer 
in vinegar than former observers have represented; and it is suggested that the 
reason of this may be that vinegar is no longer made from w T ine or beer; since, in 
the vinegar obtained from the two latter, there probably remained much sugar 
and albumen, which form a favourable basis for the growth of fungi, and therefore 
for the eels. The maturing and propagation of these animals cannot take place 
in pure vinegar, but only amongst fungi, where a nitrogenous diet is offered. 
development of thread-worm, Nematoxys (400 times enlarged). 
Vinegar now never contains adult eels, but, at most, larvte and the innumerable 
little creatures supposed to be seen upon shaking a bottle of vinegar are, for the 
most part, nothing but the skin-skeletons of these animals. Nearly allied is the 
wheat-eel (Tylenchus tritici), which is the cause of a serious disease to the cereal 
from which it derives its name. In the ears of wheat affected by this worm the 
grains are misshapen, blackish, and consist of a thick hard scale enclosing a white 
powdery substance, composed of the larval forms of the worm. If grain 
in this state is sown in moist ground, it merely rots; but the larvae awake to 
activity, and scatter over the ground in search of another growing blade of corn. 
