l6 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 8l 



rusts which produce swelHngs of possibly specific character. Other 

 examples would be bone lesions of recognizable cause. 



Let me here merely list a few of the things that seemed to be 

 indicated with a greater or less degree of probability by these earlier 

 studies of Metcalf. 



Having assumed paleogeograjjhical maps showing certain intercon- 

 tinental connections, he applied to them the data from Anura and 

 their opalinid parasites and found they fitted in such a way as to be 

 in general confirmatory. 



Protoopaliua, the most ancient genus (jf the opalinids, was present 

 in Equatoria (Australia plus Africa and South America) as early as 

 the Triassic period, and its most archaic subgeneric group of species 

 have persisted in these three continents, with only slight modification, 

 until the present day. 



Other subgeneric groups of species of Protoopalina arose as follows : 



Group II in Australia at a time not indicated by the data. 



Group III before the separation of Australia from Asia in Jurassic 

 or early Cretaceous times, in Australia or southeastern Asia, spreading 

 to Europe during the Cretaceous or early Tertiary by a route north 

 of the Himalayas, and to Africa in the late Tertiary, entering from 

 the northeast. 



Group IV, in the Jurassic period, in Australia or southeastern Asia. 



Group V, in Cretaceous times in Australasia, their presence in 

 Australia and Java but not in Sumatra indicating that Java retained 

 connection with Australia longer than did Sumatra. The absence of 

 members of this group from South America is one of several bits 

 of evidence indicating that migration between South America and 

 Australia was chiefly westward. 



Group VI, in the Jurassic period in Australia. 



Group \ II, in Precretaceous or Cretaceous times ^ in South Atlantis 

 which united Patagonia to South Africa. 



Group VIII, during the Tertiary period in western North America. 



Group IX, in Jurassic times in Lemuria (the Indian Ocean land 

 connecting Madagascar and India, see fig. 3), with a Tertiary dis- 

 persal to eastern Asia, Formosa and Java. 



The opalinids of the earliest Anura were apparently of the genus 

 Protoopalina, as evidenced by structure, life history and distribution, 

 since Protoopalinac occur in all families of Anura whose habits permit 

 infection with opalinids. 



^ Later studies tend to place this South Africa-Patagonia union somewhat 

 later, in the early Tertiary. 



