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VII. The Parasites of Elephants. RyT. Spencer Cobbold, M.J)., F.R.S., F.L.S., 



Foreign Member of the Royal Agricultural Academy of Turin. 



(Plates XXIII. & XXIV.) 



Bead April 7th, 1881. 



Preliminary Remarks. 



CONSIDERING the importance of Elephants as domesticated animals and the 

 abundant opportunities for post-mortem examinations that occur in India, it is 

 surprising how little has been done towards completing our knowledge of the parasites 

 of these large quadrupeds. As we proceed it will be found that most of the facts of 

 parasitism at present known have been gathered from the examination of animals 

 that have died in captivity either in Europe or in America. 



Eor some years past I have been engaged in collecting materials, which thus far have 

 only served to supply occasional and very incomplete records ; moreover the notices in 

 question have chiefly appeared in a periodical inaccessible to most naturalists. 



Either from the mistaken notion that the study of parasites is unattractive, or that it 

 is unremunerative, this subject has been strangely neglected ; for there is no animal of 

 equal importance with the Elephant about whose parasites so little is known. Naturalists 

 abroad have done almost nothing in this direction ; and of those at home one noteworthy 

 exception alone occurs in the person of the late Dr. Baird, who described several species 

 contributed by Dr. Murie and Mr. Gerrard respectively to the British Museum. The 

 entozoa preserved in that institution, however, have been for many years past practically 

 inaccessible to investigators. 



It is now desired to supply a summary of all that has hitherto been published, cor- 

 rected and extended by data that are entirely new. Only such anatomical details as 

 present points of zoological interest can be given ; but it is proposed to supplement the 

 natural-history facts with certain particulars which serve to explain the r61e of parasites 

 in the production of fatal epizootics. This method, with the Society's approval, may 

 stimulate further inquiry, and thus ultimately lead to the adoption of measures cal- 

 culated to lessen the mortality amongst domesticated Elephants. 



The materials placed at my disposal for this investigation have been contributed at 

 different times, and severally, by Professor Huxley, by Assistant Commissary-General 

 Colonel H. P. Hawkes, of the Madras Staff Corps — whose earlier contributions reached me 

 through the late Dr. Baird and Dr. Hugh Cleghorn. — by Veterinary Surgeon Thacker, 

 also of the Madras Army, by Mr. John Henry Steel, A.V.D., late Demonstrator of 

 Anatomy the Royal Veterinary College, and by Veterinary Surgeon Frederick Smith, 

 who had professional charge of some Elephants that died at the stables attached to 



SECOND SERIES. — ZOOLOGY, VOL. II. 31 



