Susceptibility of chickens to the nematodes, Syngamus trachea and S merulae

Abstract

Syngamus trachea S^. trachea was first reported in poultry by Wiesenthal (1799), who referred to it as a "worm of poultry". Later, it was recovered from pheasants and partridges by Montagu (1811) who named it Fasciola trachea, apparently under the impression that it was a trematode. Siebold (1836) was the first investigator to recognize the worm as a nematode and to describe its morphology. Since it did not fit into any previously described genera of nematodes, he established the genus Syngamus and named the species Syngamus trachealis. Chapin (1925) modified the specific name to trachea, and most investigators now recognize the species as Syngamus trachea. Most recent reports of trachea outbreaks in poultry have come from Czechoslovakia (Zavadil and Dyk, I966) and from Hungary (Varga, 1967). It has been reported from nine avian orders which testifies to its lack of host specificity (Appendix A). Goble and Kutz (19^5) first reported it in grackles, but apparently it has never been used in feeding experiments with this host. Klee (1903), Lewis (1925, 1926b), and Elton and Buckland (1928) associated the incidence of trachea in passeriform birds to outbreaks of "gapes" in gallinaceous birds. To clarify the relationship between Infections in