Miscelia n eous. 511 



This took six days of day and night travel, owing to unfortunate 

 conditions, and I found upon my arrival that incubation had been 

 going on for some time, and the neural folds had nearly completed 

 their coalescence. 



Wliile it is possible to get several chapters of value in the life- 

 history from the material secured, it will be necessary to make 

 another trip and a more prolonged stay next summer to get the 

 more important early stages. 



Biological Laboratorv, Williams College, 

 July li, 1888. 



— Zoologischer Anzeiger, Xo. 290, October 8, 1888, p. 568. 

 On a neiu Cyamus parasitic on the Cachalot. 



By M. G. POUCHET. 



Hitherto we have very little knowledge of the parasites of the 

 Cachalot. The animal which grounded in 1874 near Ancona bore 

 PeneUce. Bennett and 8cammou speak of Uce, but u]) to last year 

 M. Liitken had been unable to procure any. The author, who 

 accompanied Prince Albert of Monaco in the ' Hirondelle'' Avas 

 enabled, by the kindness of Mr. S. W. Dabney, to exam'ine a 

 Cachalot while it was being cut up at Lagans (Isle of Pico). He 

 found three kinds of parasites :— 1. In the first stomach a great 

 number of Nematoid worms mixed with the beaks and crj'stalline 

 lenses of Cephalopods ; 2. A Cestoid worm encysted in the fat and 

 also very abundant ; 3. On the surface of the body a new Cyamus, 

 for which he proposes the name of C. 2:)hyseteris. 



The resemblance presented by this Cyamus to other species of the 

 same genus, especially that which lives' on Meyaptera hoops, has no 

 doubt led to the whalers having omitted to collect the louse of the 

 Cachalot, which has thus remained undescribed. It is, however, at 

 once distinguished by its numerous short branchite' arranged' in 

 tufts on each side of the second and third (free) segments; their 

 length does not exceed the antero-posterior diameter of the seg- 

 ments. By its head, which is intimately united with the first 

 segment, and by its slender first pair of legs, which are turned 

 inwards, it resembles C. mysticeti and C. ovalis. On the other 

 hand the last joint of the large hook-shaped limbs is at first con- 

 tinuous with the axis of the limbs, and then curves into a complete 

 semieifcle, and it thus approaches Flatycyamus Thomp)soni. 



The male and female are of the same size. In the latter the 

 ventral lamiua> appear to be caducous. As the young which they 

 shelter are developed they separate and spread outwards, so that 

 the body of the animal at the level of the first three (free) seo-- 

 ments acquires the form of a spherical hood, within which the young 

 of very difierent sizes are in contact with the epidermis of the host 

 upon which they already ieedi.— Comptes Rendus, October 29, 1888 

 p. 698. ' 



