OBSERVATIONS ON HAMATOZOA IN CEYLON. 385 
equally frequent in regions remote from human habitations 
as in areas of cultivation. | 
From the point of view suggested by these remarks, it is 
interesting to record the occurrence of peculiar parasitic 
bodies in the blood of birds and man, for which, so far as we 
can ascertain, no provision has been made in any of the 
published accounts of the life-histories of the Protozoa of 
the blood. 
In the case of birds these bodies occur in company with 
Halteridium, and in man associated with the symptoms of 
malaria. They are crescentic organisms, rather exceeding the 
length or diameter of the blood-corpuscles, characterised by 
the absence of pigment and by the presence of vacuoles, and 
they are very rare in such preparations as we have examined. 
Their form and size relatively to the blood-cells are shown 
on Pl. 24, figs. 1—3. 
In the blood of a bird, the common babbler, Crateropus 
striatus (Swainson), taken on July 20th, 1904, Halteridium 
was present in the films, though scarce, and, in addition, there 
were some rare parasites of an elongated shape, with two or 
three vacuoles, free in the plasma. In fresh preparations they 
appeared to be non-motile, though a slight change of shape 
could be detected, the parasite becoming slightly broader 
after a time. 
Halteridium only was found in the spleen. After staining 
by Leishmann’s method, the bodies were coloured deep blue, 
and did not show chromatin. Sometimes there is the appear- 
ance of a clear halo surrounding the body (PI. 24, fig. 2). In 
a preparation which had become partly decolorised through 
lapse of time there appears to be a definite nucleus in the 
centre of the body. 
In the blood of an Indian crow (Corvus splendens) 
similar bodies were found, but of smaller size, some of them 
appearing granular without vacuoles (Pl. 24, fig. 3); these 
would seem to be specifically distinct from the parasites of 
the babbler. 
Finally, analogous bodies, exceedingly rare, have been 
