ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICEOSCOPY, ETC. 201 



anatomical characters of the Anoplocephalinte, and shonld be admitted 

 as one of the most important criteria of relationship. The primitive 

 position of the vagina was posterior to the cirrus pouch. The more 

 generaHzed representatives of the genus Andrya approach most nearly 

 of all the known Anoplocephalidffi to the ancestral types of the family. 

 Leaving out of consideration the aberrant Triplotaenia, the genera 

 Monlezia and Schlzotsenia constitute the highest types of the Anoplo- 

 cephalina? ; the other sub-families of the family seem to have sprung 

 from forms like these two genera. Cestodes exhibit a high degree of 

 variability, and great caution is needed in coming to conclusions regard- 

 ing structure and consequent relationships. 



Trematode from Protopterus.* — H. A. Baylis describes a Tre- 

 matode parasite from an African mud-fish (Protopterus aethiopicus). 

 The type, which is believed to be new to science, and to which the 

 name Heter orchis crumenifer (g. et sp. n.) has been given, is of interest 

 both because little is known of the parasites of its host, and because of 

 its structural peculiarities and probable systematic relationships. The 

 form seems to approach most closely to the Trematodes of the family 

 Lepodermatidfe. The points in which it is exceptional are, the unequal 

 size of the testes, and the condition of the excretory system, which has 

 a peculiar dorsal sac and wide aperture. The genera to which it is 

 most closely allied are Ochetosoma Braun, Renifp.r Pratt, and Lechriorchis 

 Stafford. These three genera are, with very few exceptions, parasitic in 

 the mouth, lungs, oesophagus and stomach of snakes, apparently having 

 a preference for situations more or less accessible to the outer ah*. 

 There is, however, nothing to show that the new species, which lives in 

 the intestine of its host, has any access to the air, and its occurrence in 

 an air-breathing fish is probably a pure coincidence. 



The species is fully described and figured, a generic diagnosis is 

 given, the possibility of a relation between the function of the dorsal 

 sac and the aestivation of the mud-fish is suggested, and the homologies 

 of the different parts of the excretory system are discussed. 



Skin Parasite of Fishes.f — Edwin Linton finds that certain Trema- 

 todes in the skin of the Gunner (Gtenolabrus adspersus) and some other 

 fishes of the Woods Hole region are the young of an adult which lives 

 in the intestine of the loon and other fish-eating birds. The identifica- 

 tion of tliese encysted distomes with Tocotrema lingua (Creplin) dispenses 

 with the need for Stafford's name {Dermocystis cfenolabri) for tlie 

 encysted forms. The parasites from the loon are described and their 

 essential agreement with those from the fishes is indicated. 



Sporocysts in an Annelid. | — Edwin Linton obtained from the 

 Serpulid worm, Hydroides dianflivs Verrill, large niimbers of actively 

 contractile fusiform or otherwise shaped sporocysts. In each sporocyst 

 there were cercarife of different stages, very like forms found in the 

 scallop, but moving in a different way. " Instead of a characteristic 



* Aun. Mag. Nat. Hist., xvi. (1915) pp. 85-95 (3 figs.). 

 t Journ. Parasitology, i. (1915) pp. 128-34 (3 figs.). 

 X Biol. Bulletin, xxviii. (1915) pp. 115-8 (5 figs.). 



