Identifier: royalnaturalhist612lyde (find matches)
Title: The royal natural history
Year: 1893 (1890s)
Authors: Lydekker, Richard, 1849-1915 Sclater, Philip Lutley, 1829-1913 Frostick, W. B., former owner. DSI Brooks, W. T., former owner. DSI
Subjects: Zoology Natural history
Publisher: London and New York : Frederick Warne & Co.
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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the head-end, and narrowedand pointed at the tail. The greater part of the body-cavity is occupied by thealimentary canal, which traverses it almost from end to end. The oval particlescontained in two tubes, wliidi unite and open by a common orifice, are the eggs.This worm appears to live both in vinegar and paste, although it does not seemto derive its nourishment directly from either of these substances, but rather fromvol. vi.—29 > 45° WORMS. the microscopic fungi growing in them. These worms now appear much rarerin vinegar than former observers have represented; and it is suggested that thereason of this may be that vinegar is no longer made from wine or beer; since, inthe vinegar obtained from the two latter, there probably remained much sugarand albumen, which form a favourable basis for the growth of fungi, and thereforefor the eels. The maturing and propagation of these animals cannot take placein pure vinegar, but only amongst fungi, where a nitrogenous diet is offered.
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development of thread-worm. Xematoxys (400 times enlarged). Vinegar now never contains adult eels, but, at most, larvae and the innumerablelittle creatures supposed to be seen upon shaking a bottle of vinegar are, for themost part, nothing but the skin-skeletons of these animals. Nearly allied is thewheat-eel (Tylenchus tritici), which is the cause of a serious disease to the cerealfrom which it derives its name. In the ears of wheat affected by this worm thegrains are misshapen, blackish, and consist of a thick hard scale enclosing a whitepowdery substance, composed of the larval forms of the worm. If grainin this state is sown in moist ground, it merely rots; but the larvae awake toactivity, and scatter over the ground in search of another growing blade of corn. THREAD- WORMS. 45 i If they fall in with one, they start to creep up it, and mounting ever higher andhigher, as the corn grows, ultimately succeed in reaching the summit. They thenattack the softgrain, bore intoit, and form

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