Miscellaneous. 97 



small intestine. I have met with it especially in the caecum, and 

 in smaller numhers in the first part of the colon, where it was 

 usually represented hy large individuals of a dark reddish-blue 

 colour. The number was usually less than 25 ; but I once counted 

 nearly 200. Out of 1409 specimens that I examined, 1029 were 

 females and 380 males. 



Stronyylus tetracanthus, Mehlis. — I had examined 14 horses 

 without detecting this worm in them, when, on washing some frag- 

 ments of the mucous membrane of the colon, I found an enormous 

 quantity of it in the contents of the intestine, which had remained 

 adhering to the membrane. By adopting the same process I after- 

 wards ascertained its presence in greater or less number in most of 

 the horses, in the caecum and, especially, in the colon. The females 

 were seldom more than 12 millims. long, although they often con- 

 tained ova. 



Oxyuris curvula, Rudolphi, was found in the dilated portion of 

 the upper branch of the convolution of the colon, once to the 

 number of 6, and a second time of 150 specimens. Among the 

 latter there was a male that measured 7 millims. in length. 



In Iceland Dr. Thorvald Jonsson, of Isafjord, has, at my request, 

 had the kindness to examine the intestines of some horses in search 

 of Entozoa ; and in 5 of them, all about twenty years old, he found 

 the worms only in the upper part of the large intestine, but in 

 great quantity in all, and especially in one of them. These worms, 

 of which he has sent me some, consisted in part of Oxyuris curvula 

 (about 60 individuals, among which were two males), and in part 

 of an innumerable quantity of Strongylus tetraeanthus, which 

 reached as much as 14 millims. in length. Oxyuris curvula also 

 occurs in the Danish West-India islands ; and the museum of the 

 Veterinary School possesses specimens from St. Thomas*. — Oversigt 

 over det Kongl. DansTce Videnshahernes SelsJcabs Forhand linger, 1880, 

 p. 33, and Bulletin, p. 9. 



The Platysomidae. By Dr. R. H. Traquair, F.R.S.E. 



In an important memoir, read last year before the Royal Society 

 of Edinburgh, and now just published in its Transactions, Dr. 

 Traquair discusses at length the structural characters and affinities 

 of certain genera of old fossil fishes, the position of which has been 

 very variously decided by different authors. Of known genera we 

 have here Eurynotus and Platysnmus, Agass., Mesohpis and Eury- 

 somus, Young, and Cheirodus, M'Coy ; and the author characterizes 

 two new genera under the names of Benedenius f and Wardichthys. 



* To these parasites of the horse the author adds Diplostomum 

 agyptiacum, Cobbold, found in Egypt, and remarks that the extant 

 information as to the Entozoa of the horse and ass, especially with 

 regard to their geographical distribution, is very scanty. 



t This name will have to be changed, as there is already a Cetacean 

 genus Benedenia, founded by the late Dr. Gray in 1804. 



Ann. &Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 5. Vol. vi. 7 



