178 SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. 



A PRELIIVIINARY NOTE ON H/EIViATOZOA FROM SOME 

 CEYLON REPTILES. 



By Muriel Robertson. 

 With Plate. 



T~^URING a recent visit to Ceylon I had the. opportunity of 

 -^—^ coming across a number of blood-inhabiting protozoa, j 

 chiefly confined my attention to the examination of the blood of 

 reptiles, and obtained a number of positive results. The following 

 paper gives a very brief preUminary account of the infections met 

 with. 



It gives me much pleasure to have this opportunitj^ of expressing 

 my recognition of Dr. Willey's kindness in forwarding the work in 

 every possible way. 



I propose for the present to treat the parasites according to their 

 occurrence in the vertebrate host, rather than according to their 

 classification in the Protozoon System. 



The two common tortoises in Ceylon are the lake tortoise — 

 Nicoria trijuga, and the milk tortoise or kiri-ibba — Emyda vittata. 



Nicoria trijuga. is very generally infected with Hcemogregarina 

 nicorice, described in 1905 by Dr. Castellani and Dr. Willey. This 

 particular tortoise has two habits ; it either lives in ponds or lakes, 

 and these individuals, in even such different parts of the Island as 

 Colombo, Kandy, and Trincomalee, are almost always infected by 

 the same parasite ; or it Hves an almost dry land existence in ditches. 

 Generally speaking, the dry -land tortoises are not infected. I have 

 often found ticks upon these last, but they never showed any sign 

 of protozoon life. 



' The water -living tortoise carries a little water leech, an apparently 

 undescribed species of BranchelUon. The leech lives on the tortoise 

 and lays its eggs on the carapace in large numbers, and although 

 the leech takes up its abode on its host in a much more permanent 

 way than is the case ^ith most of its kind, it nevertheless will 

 wander off it at apparently very slight provocation. This Branchel- 

 Uon appears to me to be the transmitting host for the Hsemogre- 

 garine in the blood of the Nicoria. 



The Hsemogregarine is of a very ordinary type ; it shows multipli- 

 cation in the vertebrate host, but the details of the process have not 

 yet been quite made out. It also shows the two endocorpuscular 

 types of Haemogregarines — one a broad type with a large nucleus, 

 the other a slender recurved type with a dense nucleus. In the 



