70 CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 



or to what species it belongs, I have, however, not been 

 able to gain any satisfactory clew. Lacaze-Duthiers 

 ('74) has described and figured several parasites found 

 by him '' flottant dans le liquide du corps de Bojanus " 

 of Molgula, one of which (fig. 4) he represents as having 

 irregular circular bands, apparently of some such char- 

 acter as those of the bodies here described. Beyond 

 this, however, there would seem to be little similarity 

 between the two parasites, Some of the organisms here 

 described by Lacaze-Duthiers he thinks are gregarines; 

 these particular ones, however, he says, are " evidently 

 vegetable." 



As seen by the figure, the bodies which I find are quite 

 large. The largest reach a length of 40^.. These larger 

 ones are always considerably longer than broad, though 

 their proportions vary considerably. Usually they are 

 somewhat egg-shaped, with a slight prominence project- 

 ing from the smaller end, reminding one of the epistomium 

 of some of the gregarines. The smaller ones are spherical, 

 or very nearly so. 



Perhaps the most characteristic feature of these struc- 

 tures is found in the bands, always three in number, so 

 far as I have seen, by which they are girdled. These 

 are made up of many elongated granules, possibly cutic- 

 ular in their composition, though they seem to take stain. 

 My first thought upon seeing the bodies was, that they 

 were probably peritrichous infusorians that had been 

 taken into the digestive tract as food; that the cilia had 

 been removed by partial digestion. This might not be an 

 unreasonable suggestion, but for the fact that they un- 

 doubtedly bore through the wall of the digestive tube, 

 and enter the surrounding blood spaces. As shown by 

 the figure, some (.v) are wholly outside the digestive 

 lumen: some (.v") are wholly within it, while others 



