501 



NOTES ON SOME PARASITIC PROTOZOA. 



By T. Harvey Johnston, M. A., B.Sc, Assistant Microbiologist, 

 AND J. Burton Cleland, M.D., Ch.M., Principal Assistant 

 Government Microbiologist. 



(From the Bureau of Microbiology, Sydney, New South Wales.) 



(Plate xlviii.) 



The recentl}'^ created Bureau of Microbiology is now undertaking 

 a systematic search of the Australian fauna, both domesticated 

 and native, with a view to finding out what parasites occur here. 

 So far, probably two hundred specimens have been examined for 

 hsematozoa, and about the same number for intestinal parasites. 

 Some of the results have already been made known in other pub- 

 lications. It is hardly necessary to point out that in the majority 

 of cases parasites, especially those which infest the blood, were 

 absent. Some of those which we have seen are now discussed in 

 this paper. 



Leucocytozoon (H^emogregarina) muris Balfour. 



(Plate xlviii., figs. 1-11.) 



In 1906, one of us(J.B.C.)(l) while examining the blood of 

 various rats in Perth, West Australia, noticed that the mono- 

 nuclear leucocytes of Mus alexandrinus Geoff., were parasitised 

 by an organism similar to that described by Balfour(2) from Mus 

 decuma7ius Pallas, from the Sudan as Leucocytozoon muris. These 

 organisms from Perth were recorded by mistake as L. halfouri 

 and L. ratti from Mus decumanus. The rats were subsequently 

 identified by Old field Thomas, on specimens being forwarded to 

 the British Museum, as being Mus alexandriuus Geoff. 



Quite recently the other of us(T.H.J.)(3) found the same parasite 

 in two rats {Mus decumanus) caught in Sydney, and brought 

 into the Bureau (along with many others) for examination. The 

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