458 SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



Australian Hirudinea.* — E. J. Goddard continues his studies on 

 Australian leeches, describing Pontobdella macrothela Schmarda, 

 P. australiensis sp. n., and Geobdella tristriata sp. n. 



Japanese Leeches.f — Asajiro Oka gives a synopsis of Japanese 

 Hirudinea, and describes 14 new species and 3 new varieties. Unlike 

 most describers of leeches, he does not in this synopsis lay emphasis on 

 the limits of somites. He gives prominence to more readily verified 

 characters. He establishes a new genus Carcinobdella for two marine 

 species usually found on crabs. 



Nematohelminth.es. 



Species of Tylenchus in Moss.J — Paul Horn reports finding 

 Tylenchus davainii Bast, among the leaves and root-hairs of a moss 

 {Brachythecium rutabulum), and notes that Tylenchus askenasyi Butschli 

 is the same. Similarly Ritzema Bos noted that the free-living T. inter- 

 medins de Man is the same as T. devastatrix (Kiihn), parasitic in plants. 

 The author supports the view that many species are the same, bnt 

 slightly modified by special conditions of life. 



Nematodes of the Eye.§ — A. Railliet and A. Henry have studied 

 Gurlt's types of Filar ia lacrymalis from the horse and from the cow. 

 Those from the former correspond with the authors' Thelazia lacrymalis 

 (Gurlt), those from the latter correspond to T. gulosa Railliet and 

 Henry. The authors give more details of T. leesei from the camel, and 

 they describe T. callipseda sp. n. from the eye of a dog in the Punjab. 



New Species of Atractis.|| — 0. von Linstow describes Atractis 

 perarmata sp. n. from the intestine of Cinixys belliana, a tortoise from 

 East Africa. The species of Atractis are viviparous, but the offspring 

 remain in the gut, generation succeeding generation till the gut is full, 

 as is often seen in the case of A. dactylura in the Greek tortoise. 



Adaptation of Nematodes to Temperature of their Hosts.U— 

 L. Jammes and A. Martin continue their study of the optimum tem- 

 perature for development. Some Nematodes, such as Ascaris vitidorum, 

 A. suis, and Heteralcis columbse, have eggs which cannot develop except 

 at a temperature lower than that of the host. Many, such as Ascaris 

 equorum, A. canis, Oxyuris vermicularis, Syngamus trachealis, have eggs 

 that develop at the temperature of the host or at a lower temperature. 

 A third set, like Trichina and Filaria, have eggs that develop normally 

 at the temperature of the host. " The necessity for a relatively low 

 temperature, an indifference to gradual increase of the temperature, sub- 

 ordination to the temperature of the host, the viviparous state — these are 

 successive phases of the slow evolution by which the parasite becomes 

 adapted to the high temperature of the higher animals." 



* Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S.W., xxxiv. (1910) pp. 721-32 (3 pis.). 

 f Annot. Zool. Japon, vii. (1910) pp. 165-83. 



X Arch. Ver. Preunde Naturgesh. Mecklenburg, lxiii. (1909) pp. 67-77 (1 pi.). 

 § C.Fv. Soc. Biol. Paris, lxviii. (1910) pp. 783-5. 

 || Centralbl. Bakt. Parasitenk., liii. (1910) pp. 516-18 (2 figs.). 

 «j[ Comptes Rendus, cl. (1910) pp. 418-19. 



