50 



cecum-like diverticulum. Intestine and esophagus brown. 

 Intestine large, straight, with numerous irregularities (like 

 the haustra of the human colon), terminating at subterminal 

 anus. Vulva small, inconspicuous, anterior to middle of 

 body length. Vagina long, slender, muscular, opening into 

 a capacious uterine canal with thin walls, which soon divides 

 into two uterine tubes. Ovarian tubes very long and plicated 

 tortuously about uterus and intestine. The ova (Fig. 5) are 

 very variable in appearance (taken from both specimens). 

 The best examples are elliptical to ovate in shape, with a thin, 

 colorless, pliant shell-membrane, the external surface of which 

 is thickly beset with small tubercle-like projections; the 

 interior yellowish and coarsely granular, often segmented, 

 and many examples containing larval worm met. They 

 range from 80 to 90 micromillimeters in length and from 50 

 to 60 micromillimeters in width (one very large example 

 measuring 100 by 70 micromillimeters was seen). In the 

 absence of the male no full description is possible, but the 

 above features are, as far as the writers at present know, 

 unique. The parasite approaches Ascaris spicidigera, 

 Rudolphi, and Ascaris nasuta, Schneider, both from pelicans 

 and similar birds, and Ascaris granulosa, Schneider, from 

 Tachypetes aquilus; but differs sufficiently in the details of 

 the lip structure to permit specific differentiation. 



Ascaris ardece, n. s. (Plate VI). 



In a group of helminths obtained from the alimentary tract 

 of a North American blue heron, Ardea herodias (P. Z. G. 

 Lab., 1158), there were found twelve ascarides (Path. Hist., 

 1681 ; No. 34 of Synopsis, this journal), 8 females and 4 males. 

 The host from which they were obtained died within a week 

 after its reception in the Gardens, and unfortunately the pre- 

 cise records of the part of the alimentary tract inhabited by 

 these worms were not made. There were also found frag- 

 ments of a tapeworm (T. unilateral, Dujardin) and a single 



