494 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. [42] 
of some form already described, as the spines of the body are probably 
Shed in the course of its further development. 
The proboscis is clavate, bluntly rounded in front, increasing slightly 
for a short distance back, and then narrowing gradually to the base, 
thickly beset with recurved hooks, of which there are about twenty 
series, counting from base to apex, and about fifteen visible in the long- 
est spiral; proboscis eversible; neck short, unarmed; body always 
curved, anteriorly armed with sagittate spines, thus forming an armed 
collar back of the neck, the spines of which are arranged in about eight 
transverse rows, but placed a little irregularly. A short distance back 
of this spiny collar is a transverse row of sagittate spines, which are 
placed on the inner (ventral) part of the curve, and extend up each 
side nearly to the outer (dorsal) edge. Following this row are about 
twenty other rows of similar spines, similarly placed, except that none 
of them contains as many spines, and hence is not as long as the first 
row. The first eight or ten rows do not differ much in length nor in 
the number of spines; posteriorly the rows become shorter and shorter 
until the last, in which the spines are few and hard to distinguish. 
The body increases in size for some distance back of the neck, attains 
its greatest dimensions about the anterior third, and diminishes uni- 
formly to the posterior end, which is in some slightly enlarged, ending 
ing with a bluntly rounded point. 
These worms were all found in the body cavity of their host, coiled 
up and lodged in the serous coat of the intestine or stomach, or in the 
mesentery. When found they usually had the proboscis inverted, but 
everted it, in whole or in part, when immersed in alcohol or when placed 
under the compressor. They were surrounded by a thin investing 
membrane, which was of the nature of a cyst, while at the same time 
it appeared to belong to the worm. They were uniformly coiled in a 
curved or lunate shape, with the rows of spines on the concave side. 
The body is much roughened by transverse wrinkles or creases, es- 
pecially towards the posterior end. 
The branching vascular system characteristic of this order is clearly 
defined. If the plane in which the curved animal lies be called a dorso- 
ventral one, then the principal vessels of the vascular system are lat- 
eral. 
The sexual characters were already plainly distinguishable. In one 
specimen two oval masses suspended from the base of the proboscis 
sheath were identified as the beginning testes. These were oval, 
granular bodies, the first 1.16™™" back of the proboscis sheath, and the 
second 0.34" farther back; length of each 0.164™™; breadth 0.127™™. 
They lay in the ribbon-like band or tube which in all the specimens 
depended from the base of the sheath, and which doubtless represents 
the suspensory ligament. Behind the anterior oval body lay a cluster 
of spherical nucleated cells. The genitalia, in this specimen, ended in a 
campanulate expansion, at the base of which a small pointed body was 
’ 
. 
