BY T. HARVEY JOHNSTON, M.A., D.SC. 221 



Meanwhile a short preliminary paper was published 

 l^y Dr. Cleland and myself in the February (Feb. 2nd) 

 number of the N.S.W. Agricultural Gazette, in which we 

 briefly described the worm as a new species, Filaria gibsoni, 

 quite distinct from, though closely allied to, F. reticulata 

 of the horse. The idea that the nematode could be %! any 

 way injurious to human beings was disputed, as such 

 jiodules had frequently been eaten in Australia without 

 any ill-effects having been detected. A more detailed 

 report was reserved for official publication in the Annual 

 Report of the Government Bureau of Microbiology, Sydney, 

 for 1909, which, however, did not appear until August, 

 1910. This delay allowed the inclusion of some further 

 -details, and of information either unpublished or not avail - 

 .able at the time of ^^Titing the earlier article. 



There appeared in the same month (February, 1910), 

 in the Queensland Agricultural Journal, two short papers 

 on the subject, one by Tryon (1910, a), entitled " Verminous 

 Tumours in Cattle," in which the wTiter gave a list of Austra- 

 lian literature, and made public some official information 

 -contained in reports by Park, and the other by Dodd (1910 a), 

 who disagreed with Park's statements regarding the alleged 

 irequent association between these nodules and tuberculosis. 

 About the same time, Railliet and Henry (1910), in Paris, 

 <3ontributed a short paper on the Onchocerca group of 

 parasites, and in it referred to the presence of encapsuled 

 nematodes in the connective tissues of oxen having 

 l)een recorded from Australia (Cleland ; Barnard ; Park), 

 and from Java (De Does). They also dealt with allied 

 worms causing the formation of worm-nests in other 

 hosts. They discovered that there exists in the horse 

 1}wo species of Onchocerca, one 0. reticulata preferring the 

 legs as its habitat, though found elsewhere ; the other, 

 0. cervicalis, frequenting the neck. 0. armillata was 

 ■described by them as a new species, infesting the aortic 

 walls in oxen and buffaloes in India and Sumatra. Lingard 

 (1905) had already called attention to the presence of 

 -aortic worms in Indian cattle. Neumann (1910, p. 270) 

 shortly afterwards described another species, 0. gutturosa, 

 occurring fairly commonly in the cervical ligament in 

 oattle in Algeria and Tunis. As already mentioned, 



