[45]  ENTOZOA OF MARINE FISHES OF NEW ENGLAND. 497 
t 
The presence of these parasites in considerable numbers must be in- 
jurious to the host, since they are always firmly attached and usually 
cause much local inflammation. In many cases the proboscis was found 
to have penetrated the walls of the intestine and to be protruding into 
the body cavity. In most instances of this kind it was surrounded by 
an abnormal secretion from the tissues of its host. This secretion is of 
a dark-brown, cinnamon-brown, or amber color. In many cases the pro- 
boscides were found to have become nuclei, around which were formed, 
in concentric layers, calculi of this abnormal deposition. The whole is 
further inclosed in a thickened cyst composed of two or three layers of 
connective tissue over which is thrown a thin outer covering of perito- 
neum. A cluster of these encysted calculi, lying in the peritoneum of 
the large intestine of a specimen of Striped Bass (Roccus lineatus), is 
shown in Fig. 5; one of the cysts opened, in Fig. 5a; and a cross-sec- 
tion of a calculus removed from its cyst in Fig. 5). The diameter of 
one of the largest cysts was 18™". In the calculus figured the diameter 
is 15™™. The color on the surface is, when the calculus is placed in al- 
cohol, a beautiful rich golden-brown with a silky iuster. The surface 
is uneven, with little irregular rounded or mammillary eminences. The 
nucleus is irregularly linear, 15 to 2™" in length. The inner layers are 
thin, irregularly concentric and darker in color than the outer layers. 
Outside of this central, dark portion is a lighter ring about 23™™ thick 
and made up of a great many thin, concentric layers. This lighter por- 
tion is sharply marked off from the remaining outer part of the calculus, 
separates from it easily, and can be removed from the half-caleulus, as 
one cupel can be taken out of a nest made up of graded sizes. The 
outer ring is about 3"™ thick, is a little darker than the middle ring, 
but, like it, is made up of a number of thin, concentric layers. The layers 
of the two outer rings are more regularly concentric than those of the 
inner portion. The color of the cut part of the calculus is a little darker 
than that of the surface, and the luster is waxy. A piece of one of 
these secretions burned readily and left a small quantity of ash which 
was composed largely of calcium carbonate. In one, from which the 
alcohol had evaporated, crystals were noticed which had the general 
habit and appearance of those of oxalate of urea. 
Alcoholic specimens are uniformly white in color. 
Habitat.—Striped Bass (Koccus lineatus); large intestine; Wood’s 
Holl, Mass., August and September, 1884~85. 
S. Mis. 90-32 
