Dr. O'Bryen Bellingham on Irish Entozoa. 473 



while in the limited opportunities which I have had, I have de- 

 tected and preserved upwards of 200 species, and several of these 

 occurred in six, others in ten, and one species in as many as 

 fifteen different animals. 



The Entozoa, although they do not form a very numerous di- 

 vision of the animal kingdom, are very extensively distributed, as 

 in almost all the mammalia, birds, reptiles and fish which I have 

 examined, I have detected some species, and often more than one ; 

 and there is scarcely a tissue or organ in which they do not some- 

 times occur. 



I have found them in the oesophagus, stomach and intestines, 

 in the bronchial tubes and air-cells of the lungs of some animals; 

 in the urinary bladder, in the gall and swim-bladder of others ; 

 in cellular tissue and in serous membranes ; in the substance of 

 the heart, in the liver and kidney ; some species inhabit the brain 

 of animals, others their eyes, others aneurismal swellings of ar- 

 teries, others the meatus auditorius, the frontal and maxillary si- 

 nuses, and even the cavity of the tympanum. In fact there is 

 hardly an organ in which some species has not been detected, at 

 least among vertebral animals ; and if they are more rare among 

 the Invertebrata,it is, perhaps, because we have not yet sufficiently 

 sought for them. 



The number of animals which I have dissected in order to 

 complete this list is very considerable; I possess notes of having 

 examined upwards of 270 mammalia, 360 birds and 380 fish, 

 exclusive of reptiles which are indigenous to this country. And 

 here I have much pleasure in acknowledging the assistance which 

 I have received from Mr. Richard Glennon, preserver of animals 

 to the Natural History Society, who most obligingly placed at 

 my disposal the body of any animal sent to him to be preserved 

 which I was desirous of examining; indeed, without his kind 

 co-operation, I could not have brought this list to its present 

 extent. 



The classification to which I have adhered in the following ca- 

 talogue is the one given by Rudolphi in his ' Synopsis/ followed 

 by Bremser in both his works, and adopted by almost all zoolo- 

 gists since. I cannot see the necessity for the change in the no- 

 menclature of the orders which has been made by Mr. Owen, in 

 his article Entozoa in the ' Cyclopaedia of Anatomy and Physio- 

 logy/ Rudolph? s terms are in a great measure established, ha- 

 ving been adopted by almost every writer upon the subject since 

 his time ; and if the names of families or orders are to be altered 

 upon trivial grounds, we should be under the necessity of giving 

 up many of the names which have been longest established ; in- 

 deed nothing appears to have a greater tendency to retard the 

 study of natural history than the unnecessary multiplication of 



