DR. T. S. COBBOLD ON ENTOZOA. 161 
(figs. 30-32). It is not unlikely that these are one and the same species, seeing that the 
principal difference, according to Dujardin, consists in the colour of the body and in the 
relative size of the ventral sucker. A living Distoma varies much in form during con- 
traction, and the same worm will present appearances when preserved very unlike those 
seen when it was fresh. I have found this to be the case especially in the entozoon 
under consideration, the ventral sucker presenting, during life, a most unusual breadth. 
The oral sucker was comparatively small; the simple gastric cæca, uterine tubes and con- 
tractile vesicle being severally large and conspicuous. 
Raia batis. Syngnathus acus.—Of Entozoa infesting the former, I have only to notice 
the extreme abundance of Bothriocephalus coronatus (R.) occupying the chambers of the 
spiral intestine. Under an amplification of 400 diameters, the advanced ova exhibit a 
well-developed Scolex, provided with rudimentary hooklets and sclerous particles. In 
the common Pipe-fish I have found several specimens of Filaria piscium. 
Lophius piscatorius.—The voracious habits of the Angler guarantee the presence of a 
variety of worms, and, with the exception of Orthagoriscus, no fish is perhaps more 
copiously infested. A specimen, dissected May 12, 1854, yielded three species of Entozoa, 
namely Ascaris rigida, Scolex polymorphus, and Distoma gracilescens. Most of the 
nematode individuals were imbedded in folds of the peritoneum and mesentery, the other 
kinds occupying the intestinal canal. Published deseriptions of Distoma gracilescens 
(figs. 33-37 inclusive) being few and imperfect, I offer the following notice of its more 
obvious characters :—Body of a pale brown colour, semitransparent, one-sixth of an inch 
long, flat, linear, beset all over with minute tubercular spines, those about the head being 
more cogently developed ; anterior half somewhat narrower than the posterior; oral sucker 
oval, not quite terminal; ventral sucker circular; sheath of the penis large, and placed 
immediately below the ventral cup; uterine tube broad and tortuous, occupying the 
inferior half of the body; vitelline organs consisting of two elongated, botryoidal masses, 
commencing a little below the oral sucker and passing down on either side of the neck; 
testes bulky, transparent, placed toward the lower and back part; in front of these, two 
smaller vesicular bodies, corresponding to the ovary and seminal vesicle; contractile 
vesicle very large, with thick muscular walls. à 
Orthagoriscus mola.—1 have dissected, in its entirety, but one specimen of this remark- . 
able fish. It was a very young individual, and was captured off Anstruther, on the coast 
of Fife, September 6, 1856*. There were no Entozoa in the intestinal canal, but the 
liver and retractor muscles of the anal fin contained several examples of the Gymnorhyn- 
chus reptans of Rudolphi (figs. 38-46 inclusive). Professor Goodsir has given an au 
description of this cestode in the Edinburgh New Philosophical J ournal for 1841, under 
the title of G. horridus, regarding it as a new species. If I may be allowed to differ, I 
itted to notice the two lowermost 
do not think the circumstance of Bremser's having om! 2 me 
bservance of the jointed condition 
rows of exaggerated hooks on the proboscis, or his non-o : 
i . reptans, 
of the body, as sufficient evidence that these cha rs were not present in his G. rep: 
x i , 26 inches ; 
* Its dimensions were as follows :— Length from hend to tail, 18 inches ; between tips TS im^ WC 
greatest depth of the body, 12 inches ; length of pectoral fins, 2 inches and a ga 0 pervure, 
Two or three other individuals were taken a few weeks previously in the Firth of Forth. 
