MAESUPIALIA 431 



corresponding type-forms of entozoa as guests within their 

 bodies. Speaking generally, the inference is correct ; but very 

 few of the entozoa hitherto found in marsupials correspond, as 

 species, with those infesting man and non-pouched mammalia. 

 A noteworthy exception occurs in the case of the common liver- 

 fluke, which is abundant in the great kangaroo (Macropus 

 major). This fact was well known to Bremser and all the older 

 helminthologists, and it has since been confirmed by numerous 

 observers resident in Australia. The late Dr Howe, an acute 

 observer and successful stock-breeder, who wrote chiefly in 

 connection with the sanitary bearings of parasitism, remarked 

 that " the native animals of Australia are much infested with 

 internal parasites. Some of those now found in the kangaToo 

 and the smaller marsupials may have been derived from 

 our domestic animals ; but tapeworms and other internal 

 parasites have been met with in animals occupying regions 

 wholly unsettled." Precisely so. That is just what we should 

 expect. The Australian indigenous mammals have their own 

 entozoa as a matter of course, and, in addition, they have con- 

 tracted a few species from the domestic animals introduced into 

 the country. On the whole, however, it cannot be said that 

 the parasites of marsupials are of much practical consequence 

 to agriculturists, since, with the exception of flukes, and pro- 

 bably hydatids, the Australian marsupials do not appear to 

 harbor any entozoa that are likely to prove injurious to man 

 and his domestic companions. The amount of fluke-germ dis- 

 tribution by kangaroos must be infinitesimal as compared with 

 that proceeding from sheep and other kinds of "stock ;" there- 

 fore on the score of parasitism alone it is not desirable to 

 hasten the slaughter of kangaroos. From the scientific stand- 

 point, it is to be regretted that the naturalists of New South 

 Wales and other colonies have done so little towards defining 

 the various species of marsupial entozoa. Mr Krefft, in his 

 interesting brochure on Australian entozoa, describes a few 

 tapeworms, and also points to several round worms which may 

 be new to science, but with the exception of the common fluke 

 no trematode appears to have been encountered by himself or 

 Mr Masters in the various marsupials which they examined in 

 the neighbourhood of Sydney and Queensland. Dr Bancroft, 

 of Brisbane, has placed in my hands a small collection of 

 entozoa, several of which have been obtained from marsupials, 

 but their identification remains partly in abeyance. 



