ON THE SEASONAL DISTRIBUTION OF 

 FISH PARASITES 



By Prof. Edwin Linton, 

 Washington and Jefferson College, Washington, Pa. 



This paper is in response to an inquiry addressed to 

 the writer a short time ago. In substance it was desired 

 to know at what particular season one should expect to 

 find worms in the flesh and other parts of various named 

 marine species of food fish. 



While satisfied at the outset that there is practically 

 no seasonal periodicity in the occurrence of cases of par- 

 asitism among marine fishes, it seems to be worth while 

 to examine some typical cases, of which data are avail- 

 able, in order to set the matter in as clear a light as pos- 

 sible. My own period of investigation on the subject of 

 parasitism has been confined almost exclusively to the 

 months of July and August and parts of the months of 

 June and September. If my data, therefore, were limited 

 to what I have collected myself I would be in a poor posi- 

 tion to shed any light on the inquiry. Fortunately I suc- 

 ceeded some years ago in interesting that veteran and in- 

 telligent collector, Vinal N. Edwards, of Woods Hole, 

 Mass., in this matter, and, as a result, I have found each 

 season since then a large collection of material waiting 

 for me upon my arrival at Woods Hole for the summer's 

 work. These collections of parasites, mainly from fishes 

 and fish-eating birds, usually requiring from 300 to 400 

 bottles and vials to accommodate them, have been col- 

 lected in the months from September to June. As a re- 

 sult of the preliminary study of these collections, I have 

 notes on parasites of many of our common fishes that 

 have been collected throughout the year. In this paper 

 I propose to summarize some of the results obtained from 

 an examination of the collections made by Mr. Edwards 

 and those made by myself in the Woods Hole region from 



