494 Zuoloyical Society : — 



scales, and with minute smooth ones inferiorly ; the fingers are 

 slightly dilated ; the fourth is very little longer than the third, then 

 follow the fifth, the second, and the first. The hind-leg reaches 

 heyond the tympanum, if laid forwards ; it is covered with keeled 

 scales, except the inferior and posterior sides of the femur, which are 

 granular. 



The ground-colour of the upper parts is greyish or brownish, 

 darkest along the margins of the vertebral band ; a broad yellowish 

 or yellow dorsal band reaches from the occipital shield to the tail, 

 where it is gradually lost. Tlie lower parts are whitish. In one of 

 the two specimens, the sides, the belly, and the lower part of the tail 

 are marked with longitudinal blackish lines. 



in. lin. 

 Distance between the tympanum and the extre- 

 mity of the snout .5| 



Distance between the tympanum and the vent . . 1 4 



Length of the tail 4 



Distance between the extremity of the snout and 



the anterior margin of the orbit 2| 



Distance between the anterior angles of the orbit 2\ 



Length of tlie fore leg H 



of the hind leg 1 3 



Description of a New Species of Entozoon, Sclerostoma 



SIPUNCULIFORME, FROM THE InTESTINES OF THE ElEPHANT. 



By W. Baird, M.D., F.L.S. 



Very few opportunities, apparently, have occurred to helmintho- 

 logists of examining the bodies of Elephants. In Diesing's enume- 

 ration of Entozoa found in the Mammalia, only one species is men- 

 tioned by him as having been observed and described as a parasite 

 of this Pachyderm. This is an Ascaris, first mentioned by the cele- 

 brated Rudolphi as infesting the liver. The same parasitic worm 

 has since then been found in the biliary ducts of a young Indian 

 Elephant in America by Dr. Jackson of Boston. In his mention 

 of this Ascaris (Ascaris lonchoptera, Diesing), Dr. Jackson states 

 that it occurred along with numerous specimens of a Distoma, which 

 he refers to the species D. hepaticum. The poor animal from which 

 these worms were taken died of disease of the liver with ascites, and 

 there was found also a large, deep, chronic ulcer in the stomach. 

 The species here described will now make a third parasite recorded 

 as belonging to the Elephant. I am indebted for it to Mr. Edward 

 Gerard of the British INIuseum, who found it in the large intestines 

 of a young Indian Elephant which recently died in London, after 

 having been only a very short time in England. This animal, from 

 Mr. Gerard's account of it, had suffered also from dropsy, as a large 

 quantity of water escaped upon opening the abdomen. 



Sclerostoma sipunculiforme, Baird. 



Caput cylindricum, magnum, truncatnm ; oris limbo interno den- 

 ticulis densis, externo aculeis majoribus numerosis, armato. 



