CONTRIBUTIONS TO AMERICAN HELMINTHOLOGY. 57 
tion. It may be similar to the “Schluck-ceffnung” observed by 
Vogt in certain marine Trematodes.’ 
The genital orifice, as in D. dimorphum, is situated behind the 
ventral sucker about 1mm. No cirrus was detected. The oval 
eggs have a thickish yellow shell, with a lid at the narrow end, and 
measure 0.099 mm. by 0.066 mm. 
2.—DISTOMUM ASPERUM, 2. sp. 
One of the two examples of Botaurus minor above referred to 
yielded ten specimens of a Distome occupying two varicose dilata- 
tions of the bile-duct, recalling the swollen bile-ducts described by 
Cobbold® in a Porpoise. The worms proved to belong to Dujardin’s 
sub-genus Echinostoma; and I at first believed that they might be 
D. ferox, Zeder, first detected by Goeze in dilated intestinal follicles 
of Ardea stellaris. I was more inclined to do so from discrepancies 
in the various descriptions of this form.’ Certain peculiarities, how- 
ever, seem to me to mark it off from that species, of which it is 
undoubtedly a near relative, and I accordingly propose the specific 
name “asperum” for my specimens. 
DEsoRIPTION (Figs. 3, 4, 5).—Body yellowish white, 8.19 mm. long, 
1.8 mm. broad in middle, tapering gradually to each end; the head 
and anterior part of neck narrower than tail; covered entirely with 
persistent spines 0.054 mm. long, somewhat sparse posteriorly ; head 
reniform, with a coronet of 27 obtusely-pointed spmes, four of which 
on each side of a median ventral notch are larger (0.155—0.16 mm.) 
than the others (0.117 mm.), and radiate from nearly a common point 
of origin; anterior sucker terminal, with projecting circular lip 0.14 
mm, in diam. ; ventral large (0.75 mm.), situated at junction of anterior 
and middle thirds of body. Vitelligenous glands chiefly in neck, but 
accompanying intestinal coeca to posterior end. 
The orbicular neck of D. ferox, its deciduous spines only present 
anteriorly, the position of its ventral sucker, and the constriction of 
the body there, together with the arrangement of the coronal spines, 
seem to distinguish it effectually from D. asperum.” The genital 
1 Zeit. f. Wiss. Zool., B. XXX., Suppl., p. 307, f. 
8 Jour. Linn, Soc. XIII., p. 39. 
For lit. see Dies. Syst. I., p. 887; Molin. Denkschr. d. k. Akad in Wien XIX., p. 219; 
Olsson, Kongl. Svensk. Vetensk, Akad. Handlingar. XIV., p. 22. I have not access to Van 
Beneden’s paper, ‘‘ Sur la cicogne blanche et ses parasites.” Bull. Acad. Belg. XXV. 
10 Cf, Fig. 4 with Olsson’s Fig. 50 loc. cit.; also V. Linstow’s descr. Trosch. Archiv., 18/3, 
p. 106, and Dujardin’s. 
