i86 ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY 



specimen of this large Octopus alive on the shore in the bay to the 

 east of Blackness Castle. I had previously seen a dead individual 

 of this same species in the same locality on 28th October 1898, also 

 after a heavy gale. ROBERT GODFREY, Edinburgh. 



Platyarthrus hoffmanseg'g'ii, Brandt^ in Fife. On i4th June 

 (1900) I had the good luck to find this rare terrestrial Isopod in 

 some numbers in nests of the common ashy-black ant, Formica fit sea, 

 under stones on a sunny bank between Inverkeithing and St. David's, 

 Fife. Like a number of other creatures that live in ants' nests, it is 

 white and blind. The only previously recorded locality for this 

 little " Woodlouse " in Scotland seems to be Banffshire, where it 

 was found by Thomas Edward. It forms an interesting addition to 

 Mr. Thomas Scott's List of "The Land and Fresh- water Crustacea 

 of the District around Edinburgh" ("Proc. Roy. Phys. Soc.," 1890- 

 91). WILLIAM EVANS, Edinburgh. 



On the Occurrence of Diphyllobothrium stemmacephalum, 

 Cobbold, in the Intestines of a Porpoise. A Porpoise (Phoecena 

 com/minis} was recently cast up on the beach at Bay of Nigg, near 

 Aberdeen. On making an examination of the viscera of this 

 Cetacean, several specimens of a Cestode were observed, but it is 

 doubtful if any of them were perfect. The anterior ends of the 

 specimens are extremely attenuated, and the head is very small. 

 Only two or three, however, have the head intact. Though the 

 anterior end is very attenuated, the rest of the animal is of the 

 usual "tape "-like form a form which has given to these creatures 

 the name of tapeworms. The two largest of the specimens, after 

 having been for some time immersed in a saturated solution of 

 corrosive sublimate, measured each eight feet in length, with an 

 average width of nearly half an inch. The intestines of the Porpoise 

 were in one or two places considerably distended by the crowding 

 together of the Cestodes, and, one would fancy, must have caused 

 more or less discomfort to their unfortunate host. Only the one 

 kind of Entozoon was observed, and it agrees so well with Dr. 

 Cobbold's description of DipJiyllobothrium stemmacephalum that 

 there can be no doubt about it being that species. Sexually-mature 

 tapeworms do not appear to be very plentiful in the Cetacea, at least 

 as regards number of species, though individually they may be 

 more common. Dr. Cobbold, in his " Treatise on the Entozoa of 

 Man and Animals," published in 1879, mentions only two species 

 the one referred to above, and Tetrabothrium triangulare, Diesing, 

 found in Delphinus rostratus. 



Diphyllobothrium stemmacephalum was described by Dr. Cobbold 

 in the "Transactions of the Linnean Society," vol. xvii. p. 167. He 

 also gives a short description of the species with three figures in the 

 text in the " Treatise " just referred to, and states that four of the 



