Mr. H. A. Baylis on Dicroccelium lanceatum. Ill 



Furrow-spinelets 6 ; actinal interme- 

 diate spiuelets usually 3 (2 to 4) ; 

 prominent abactinal plates numerous 

 (more than 30 and as many as 50 to 

 each fifth of body) and with not more 

 than 15 spineleta to a plate, frequently 



10 or less Asterina coronata cris- 



tata (Fisher) *. (Caroline Islands.) 



EXPLANATION OF PLATE XIII. 

 Type of Asterina coronata cristata (Fisher). 



VI. — Is Dicroccelium lanceatum a Parasite of the Cat? 

 A Note on a new Variety. , By H. A. BAYLIS, B.A. 



(Published by permission of the Trustees of the British Museuin.) 



[Plate XIV.] 



REFERENCES have occasionally been made in helminthological 

 literature f to the occurrence of " Distomum lanceolatum " % 

 in the cat. These cases have, however, in recent years been 

 generally discredited, and it has been suspected that the 

 parasites recorded belonged to one or other of the species of 

 Opistltorchisox Clonorchis ( O./elineus and C. sinensis) known 

 to occur in cats, these forms being more or less similar to 

 Dicroccelium lanceatum in size and superficial appearance, 

 though differing widely from it in their internal structure. 



The typical D. lanceatum is a well-known parasite of sheep 

 and cattle, and of various other herbivorous mammals; it is 

 also an occasional, and probably accidental, parasite of man, 

 having been met with some six times. Its occurrence in a 

 carnivore, however, is a point with regard to which some 

 scepticism is not unnatural. When, therefore, I received 

 some time ago some Trematodes taken from the liver of a 

 cat, I was greatly interested to find that they belonged un- 

 doubtedly to the genus Dicroccelium, and differed from the 

 typical D. lanceatum only in certain very small anatomical 



* This form is probably distributed over western Oceania. It seems 

 to be readily separable from the Japanese form, which has been classed 

 as true coronata, although it probably is not. 



f See, e.g., Leuckart, 'Die Parasiten des Menschen,' I., Abth. 2, 

 p. 360; von Linstow, ' Compendium der Helminthologie,' p. 30. 



\. Synonymy: Fasciola lavceolata Rudolphi, 1803; Distomum lan- 

 ceolatum Mehlis, 1825; Dicroccelium lanceolatum Duiardin, 1845; 

 Dicroccelium lanceatum Stiles & Ilassall, 1897. 



