227 



It -was about three-eighths to half-an-inch long, and was abundant during 

 the warm wet weather of Jaly and August (perhaps earlier). Afterwards, 

 that is by September, the disease appeared amongst the sheep grazed on 

 such land, but only lambs were affected, old sheep had strength of con- 

 stitution to withstand it. "Was it not very probable these small worms got 

 up the sheep's nostrils, and quickly grew into Strong ylus filar ia ? For it 

 was certain that if sheep were fed on such pastures for a day only, they 

 were afterwards affected by the disease, and many very soon died. 

 Mr. Beulah said that though he felt unable to say much upon the subject 

 fi'om a scientific point of view, he was very well acquainted with the 

 practical side of it, and knew that the disease caused by these worms 

 increased in his neighbourhood to a fearful extent. He got a large 

 family of them from the lung of a sheep, where they had become 

 encysted, and he made out that there were over 300,000 eggs in this 

 single group. The males he found to be very few in number as compared 

 with the females. It was his opinion that the embryos were upon the 

 grass where the sheep were fed, and this was how the disease got spread. 

 It was not, however, found everywhere, but only partially distributed. He 

 remembered a case in which 72 sheep had been purchased and sent home 

 all healthy — two of their number falling lame by the way were put in a 

 pigstye and left behind — the others went on, and were turned into a meadow 

 for the night. The whole of the 70 began to show the disease eight days 

 after being in the field, but the two who did not go there were alive and 

 well at the present time. On examination the dew from this meadow was 

 found to be full of eggs. On his own farm sheep had been grazed in eight 

 different parts, and those from three out of the eight were attacked by the 

 disease, whilst the number of sheejD which had suffered from it within a radius 

 of five miles was upwards of a thousand. How the larvae got into the lungs 

 was a question that often arose, and he had thought they were snuffed up 

 by the sheep. Som.e people called this disease the liver rot; but he could 

 only say that, so far as his sheep were concerned, they had perfectly healthy 

 livers, but their lungs were all full of the worms. He had seen some of the 

 saliva coughed up by the sheep, and knew that it contained thousands of the 

 eggs. He would only say further that if anyone present wanted specimens 

 for the purpose of study, he should be very glad to send what was required, 

 as he was sure there was a very wide field oj)en for their investigations. 



Votes of thanks were then unanimously passed to Dr. Cobbold and Mr. 

 Hardy for their communications. 



The President said that, owing to the lateness of the hour, it would not 

 be doing justice to Mr. Priest to take his paper then, for if any one had 

 taken the trouble to write a paper and to draw diagrams in illustration, it 

 was hardly fair to have them hurried through during the last part of the 

 evening. With Mr. Priest's concurrence, therefore, the paper would be 

 postponed until their next ordinary meeting, which would take place on 

 January 28th, 1881. 



The proceedings then terminated with the usual Conversazione, at which 

 the following objects were exhibited : — 



