19 14] A New Cestode from A mi a Calva L. 81 



A NEW CESTODE FROM A MIA CALVA L. 

 By a. R. Cooper, M.A., 



(Read 26th October, 1914) 



A few years ago, Professor R. R. Wright drew the writer's attention 

 to a Bothriocephalid which, during the course of his earHer helmintho- 

 logical researches, he had found in Aniia calva L. and believed to be 

 entirely new. Later specimens of the same genus, and perhaps, too, 

 of the same species, were procured from the same host taken in the 

 vicinity of the Lake Biological Station on Georgian Bay; and, since a 

 preliminary examination showed that the worm had apparently not yet 

 been described, it was thought advisable to make it the subject of a 

 more or less thorough investigation, and to publish the results. 



The writer wishes to herewith express his indebtedness to Professor 

 B. A. Bensley for valuable assistance and advice in connection with the 

 preparation of this paper, and to Professor H. B. Ward, of the Univer- 

 sity of Illinois, for opinions on a preliminary description and for material 

 from his private collection. 



The following paper is concerned only with the morphology of the 

 worm, a consideration of its systematic position having been dealt with 

 in a second paper published in the Transactions of the Royal Society 

 of Canada (Series III, Vol. VIII, 1914, pp. 1-5). 



Material. 

 Apart from a few examples kindly sent to the writer by Dr. Ward, 

 the material consists of worms ranging in length from a few millimeters 

 to about ten centimeters, taken from the duodenum of three or four 

 specimens of Amia calva, L. These were all fixed in Alcoholic-acetic- 

 sublimate*, and stained in bulk for transparency-preparations with 

 Meyer's Acid Carmine and in sections with Heidenhain's Iron-Haema- 

 toxylin and Orange G or Mallory's stain, the latter to bring out basement 

 membranes in particular. 



General Appearance. 



When removed from the anterior end of the intestine of the host to 



normal saline solution the cestodes are quite active, undergoing changes 



in length and breadth particularly in the middle and posterior portions 



of the strobila ; those in the scolex and most anterior proglottides are less 



*The Taenioid Cestodes of North American Birds, by B. H. Ransom; Proc. U.S. 

 Nat. Mus., Bulletin 69, 1909. 

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