1868.1 101 [Wyman. 



1st. The oesopiiagus has numerous longitudinal folds in its mucous 

 membrane allowing of large dilatation, but has no glandular portion, 

 nor is there any distinct pro-ventriculus. The gastric follicles are all 

 included in a separate, pear-shaped pouch about thirty m. m. in length, 

 and somewhat less in breadth. This does not open into the oesopha- 

 gus, but directly into the gizzard proper, through the cuticular lin- 

 ing of its ujaper portion, by a mouth only four or five millimeters in 

 diameter. The follicles are oblong, flask-shaped, the largest of them 

 forming the tbickest part of the Avails of the pouch, which is near its 

 widest portion, and have a length of five or six miUimeters. 



2d. The pyloric portion forms another pouch about seventeen mil- 

 limeters in diameter, and, like the first, is an appendage to the giz- 

 zard. Its whole cavity is densely packed with slender, flexible, horny 

 filaments, seven or eight millimeters long, attached around the en- 

 trance of the duodenum, the ft-ee ends pointing towards the cavity 

 of the gizzard. Any pressure upon them from this last direction 

 would cause them to overlap each other. Whatever the function 

 of these strange structures may be, they must act as a filter, and 

 could not fail to prevent the passage of all solid particles, unless of 

 very minute size, from the stomach into the intestine. 



The cavity of the gizzard, as well as that of the glandular pouch, 

 contained large numbers of j^arasites, which correspond very nearly, 

 if they are not identical with, the Eustrongylus ixipiUos^us, Diesing, 

 found by Natterer in the P. anhinga fi'om Brazil.^ While some of 

 them simply adhered to the mucous membrane, others had their heads 

 thrust deeply in, or their bodies Avere almost concealed by being buried 

 in, the gastric follicles. They are about seventeen millimeters in 

 length, and their oviducts contained an abundance of eggs. 



Cranial parasites. The parasites from within the skull which will 

 be described here, were found in every instance coiled up on the back 

 of the cerebellum (Fig. 1), just behind the cerebral lobes, and con- 

 fined to the texture between the arachnoid and pia mater, but whether 

 originally in the vessels or the meshes of the connective tissue, Avas not 

 determined. In those cases where the number was large, the parasites 

 were undoubtedly in the latter. The number varied from two to six 

 or eight, or even more, and the two sexes were always present, though 

 not ahvays in equal numbers; in one bird three males and one female, 

 and in another one male and two females were noticed. After a 

 careful search , the parasites were not detected either in other parts 



1 Diesing, Syst. Helminth, Vol. II, p. 326. 



