OTES 



PARASITIC WORMS IN RED-BACKED SHRIKE. 

 On or about May 23rd, 1916, a male Red-backed Shrike 

 (Lanius collurio) was picked up dead beneath the stump of 

 a withered tree near Chelmsford. Desiring to have it made 

 into a skin. I sent it to Gardner's, in Holborn. After skinning, 

 he returned tlie body to me that I might see an extraordinary 

 collection of parasitic worms (evidently some species of 

 Filaria) he had found beneath the skin of the neck — a 

 thing he had never seen before. These worms, some twenty 

 in number, were white in colour, slender, thread-like, of the 

 same diameter throughout, and each about three inches in 

 length. They were '' rooted " (so to speak) in the flesh of 

 the upper part of the neck, aromid the base of the skull. 

 Some of them had, I believe, actually penetrated into the 

 cranial cavity and reached the brain, passing through the 

 basal orifice. They had been. Avithout doubt, the cause of 

 the bird's death. 



I submitted the bird's neck, preserved in formalin, to 

 Dr. A. E. Shipley, F.R.S., who hacl kindly offered to examine 

 the worms. He reports that there is little doubt they are 

 Filaria nodulosa of Rudolph. The species may be known 

 now, he says, by some other name ; for systematists have 

 constantly revised the species of this genus, and it is difficult 

 to obtain access to the latest revision Avhilst so many libraries 

 and nuiseums are wholly or partiallj^ closed. The species in 

 question is, however, described in Molin's monograph on 

 Filaria and in Schneider's monograph on the Nematoda 

 (p. 91, 1866). Both writers describe it as living beneath the 

 skin of the neck of the Red-backed Shrike. The phenomenon 

 is, therefore, clearly not new, though several good British 

 ornithologists to whom I have mentioned it have known 

 nothing of it. As to whether other species of Shrike are 

 affected. I know not. 



It would be interesting to ascertain the earlier host of this 

 curious parasitic worm : but, as to this, probably nothing 

 is known. No doubt it is some beetle, or bee, or small verte- 

 brate animal on which the bird is accustomed to feed. 



Miller Christy, 



[Out of eighteen Red-backed Shrikes examined by Herr J. 

 Thienemann from different parts of Germany, no fewer than 

 fifteen were infested with thread-worms {Filaria). Two 



