Diseases of Fishin the Adirondacks 17 
Osborne describes the several organs in the digestive system as 
follows: 
“The pharynx which is generally present in trematodes and usually 
follows close after the oral sucker, is entirely wanting. There is a 
short tube immediately behind the oral sucker which, after running 
ventrally a short distance, makes a dorsal bend to meet a transverse 
portion of the intestine. This is the esophagus. The intestine con- 
sists of a part crossing the body transversely which after bending, 
continues as the two long lateral coeca. The wall of the intestine 
is contractile; in life its movements are very conspicuous. The lumen 
is filled with a fine grained material lemon yellow in color. This 
flows back and forward, streaming, the pouches empty themselves of 
it or fill with it and the contractions of the wall may obliterate the 
intestine entirely for a moment. The cavity of the intestine of the 
worms obtained from the bass cysts is filled with thin, flat, four- 
sided crystalline bodies. As soon as the worm has escaped from its 
cyst the strong peristaltic contractions already mentioned force this 
substance backward and forward. At frequent intervals portions of 
it are expelled from the body through the mouth. In worms obtained 
from the heron this material is not found in the cavities of the intes- 
tine. In such worms on the contrary the intestine has been found 
to contain a coagulated fluid substance with blood corpuscles scattered 
through it, which upon careful examination were found to be identical 
with blood corpuscles taken from the heron.” 
The color of the fluid in the intestine is not uniformly a lemon 
color but may be-a dark brown to almost black. The amount of 
substance in the two lateral coeca seems to vary in the several worms 
examined and in the two coeca of an individual worm. A study of the 
contents of the coeca in the killed specimens is not satisfactory but 
I am able to make out roundish bodies and a matrix which readily 
absorbs stain. 
Sections of the intestine filled with these bodies were submitted to 
Dr. W. A. Groat, Professor of Microchemical Analysis of the College 
of Medicine, Syracuse University, and he was unable to find any 
evidence of hemoglobin or the products of hemoglobin in these bodies. 
Professor Charles H. Richardson, of the department of mineralogy, 
examined this material and reports as follows: 
“The stained material was uniformily dark during the complete 
rotation of the stage of the petrographic microscope under polarized 
light. No clue as to composition was afforded by this polarization. 
The material was then treated with water at normal temperature 
