nKiri'KAMIA KIKKMAN 



On Bertramia kirkniani sp. nov. ; a Myxo- 

 sporidium occurring in a South African 

 Rotifer. 



Ernest IVarreii, D.Sc.L.oii(l., 



Director uf tlie Natal Goveninient Museum. 



With Plate VI. 



In Marchj 1905^ the Hon. Tliomas Kii'kman, of Natal, wlio 

 was working" at rotifers in the laboratory of the Natal 

 Government Museum^ showed to nie a living specimen which 

 was apparently parasitised by containing a number of gran- 

 ular sausage-shaped bodies lying unattached in the body- 

 cavity. The rotifer in question is a species of Copeus of 

 the Notommatida3 ; it possesses the curious sac of chalky 

 matter found in several members of this family, and it is 

 characterised by a curious hump towards the posterior end 

 of the body. I believe Mr. Charles Eousselet is about to 

 describe the species. This rotifer appears to be local in its 

 occurrence : Mr. Kirkman, its discoverer, has found it in the 

 neighbourhood of the Botanical Gardens, Pietermaritzburg, 

 and also at Richmond, Natal, some twenty miles distant. 



Nearly the whole of the following account had been written 

 before I discovered that a similar organism in rotifers had 

 been previously partially described. Prof. E. A. Minchin ' 

 in his recent article on Sporozoa gives some original figures 

 of the organism. It was called by L. Cohn - (1902) Ber- 



' 'A Treatise ou Zoology,' edited by Prof. E. Ray Laukester. Pt. I. 

 1903. 



- • Zool. Auzeiger," xxv, ]90'2, pp. 497-502. 



