(141) 



382 C. GORDON HEWITT. 



could easily move down into the cavity of the proboscis. I 

 am unaware of any previous record of the occurrence of 

 Habronema muscle in this country, but I have no doubt 

 that if one searched specially for it it would be found to 

 occur more commonly than might appear from my experience, 

 aud to be generally distributed with its host throughout the 

 world. 



The occurrence of a parasitic worm in this position is of 

 great interest, even though M. domestica is not a blood- 

 sucking species and the nematode is not of the nature of 

 Filaria bancrofti. There is no reason, however, why M. 

 domestica should not under certain conditions carry patho- 

 genic nematodes, which might easily get on to the food of 

 man. 



3. Dissemination of Parasitic Worms. 



In this connection reference might be made to the experi- 

 ments of Grassi (1883) to which reference is made by Nuttall 

 in his valuable memoir (1899). Grassi broke up segments of 

 Tasnia solium in water; they had previously been preserved 

 in alcohol for some time. Flies sucked up the eggs in the 

 water and he found them unaltered in the faeces. Oxyuris eggs 

 were also passed unaltered. In another experiment flies fed 

 on the eggs of Trichocephalus and he found the eggs yome 

 hours afterwards in the flies' faeces, which had been deposited 

 in the story beneath the laboratory ; he also caught flies in 

 this kitchen with their intestines full of eggs. 



Calandrnccio 1 examined flies (? species) which had settled 

 upon faeces containing the ova of Taenia nan a. The ova 

 were found in the flies' intestines. The excrement deposited 

 by a fly on sugar contained two or three ova of the Taenia. 

 By means of such infected sugar a girl was infected, and ova 

 of T. nan a were found in her stools on the twenty-seventh 

 day. 



1 "Ulteriori ricerclie sulla Tsenia nana," 'Boll. See. Zool. Ital. 

 Roma,' vol. vii, pp. 65-69 ; also in ' Boll. Aead. Gioenia, Catania,' Fasc. 

 89, pp. 15-19. 



