no Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria. 



The adult Huke is at most not more tlian ^-4 in. in length. 

 The alimentary canal has the usual form. The ovary is a 

 racemose gland surroundirjg and opening into the part 

 where the two ducts from the yelk-glands join and the 

 uterus arises. The much-coiled uterus is full of ova witli 

 brown shell cases, and runs forward to open, not close to the 

 male organs, but, as can be seen both in the whole animal 

 and by means of a continuous series of transverse sections, 

 anteriorly by the left side of the head sucker. The three 

 adult animals examined agreed in this respect : in the 

 ■whole animals the eggs could be traced forwards to the 

 sucker, but this might of course have been due to their lying 

 in a groove on the surface ; sections showed that this was 

 not so, but that the oviduct ran forward. The testes are 

 two large oval bodies, one on each side of the ventral sucker, 

 sucker. Their ducts unite and open in the usual position. 



Tlie excretory vesicle is well developed, and has strongly 

 muscular walls. In sections the median canal can be traced 

 as a sino-le duct as far forwards as the ventral sucker. 



(2) Oil the presence of a Pentastomum parasitic i n the Lung 

 of the Copper-head Sncd-e ( Hoplocephalus superhus). 



My attention was first drawn to this arthropod by my 

 friend and pujiil, Mr. Dombrain, who noticed its presence 

 when cutting open a snake on King Island in November, 

 1887. Further searching showed me at once that the copper- 

 head snakes of the island were infected by the parasite, 

 which lives in their lungs. In one snake I counted no fewer 

 than T29 specimens in the lung, and yet to all appear- 

 ance this animal was perfectly healthy. When living they 

 are of a briglit red colour, due to the amount of blood sucked 

 into the body from the lung of the snake. 



The parasite lies with its head buried in the lung tissue 

 and firmly attached by means of its four very definite hooks. 

 The female, which is much the largest, measures when full- 

 grown some 2 inches in length, and has from ab<iut GO-70 

 very distinct annulations on its body. The mouth is ventral 

 and anterior, and apparently plugged by a somewhat trian- 

 gular-sha))ed piece of tissue with chitinous edges. The anus 



