140 Miscellaneous. 



bird held by a thread attached to its legs to flutter about. This is 

 a practice which is still one of the commonest acts of the daily 

 cruelty to animals witnessed in Italy, and has consequently occupied 

 thoughtless human creatures at least since the time of the Etruscan 

 people, which loses itself iu the obscurity of an unknown past. — 

 Archiv fur Naturgeschichti', xlvii. (1881) pp. 514-516. 



Note on some obscure Points in the Organization and Development 

 of the Echinorhynchi. By M. M^gnin. 



The Echinorhynchi are generally regarded as entirely destitute 

 of a mouth and digestive organs. M. Lespos has described what 

 he thought was a digestive organ in the trunk of EcJiiaorhi/nchns 

 (pgas ; but his view has not been adopted by subsequent authors ; 

 and M. Megnin thinks that the cavity that exists in the interior of 

 the trunk is the result of a disposition rendered necessary by the 

 alternate erection and retraction of the trunk, like the finger of a 

 glove, frequently observed in these worms. 



His own investigations have been pursued for several years upon 

 different species of Echinorhynchi^ both adult and in the state of 

 encysted larva), obtained from fishes, reptiles, birds, and Cetacea ; 

 and he states that, although the cavity of the trunk may not be a 

 digestive organ, such an organ nevertheless exists. In many Echi- 

 norhynchi there are two pyriform organs, which open at the base of 

 the neck in the species which have not the trunk sessile, and at the 

 base of the trunk in those which have no neck. These organs, 

 called menisci, were regarded by Dujardin as a salivary apparatus ; 

 but all other helminthologists have confessed ignorance of their 

 significance and function. In some encysted larvae of Echinorhynclii, 

 obtained from the cellular tissue of Varani and of a pheasant, the 

 author found that these menisci filled the cavity of the body and 

 opened at the base of the trunk in a large Iniccal pore with finely- 

 folded lips. In a specimen of EcJtinorhynchus hrevicolUs from the 

 whale the menisci were replaced by two long c}dindrical tubes, 

 opening into a furrow at the base of the trunk, and extending to 

 the extremity of the body ou each side of the generative organs. 

 The interior of these tubes was lined with polygonal cells strongly 

 impregnated with fat-globules of a reddish-yellow colour ; and the 

 author describes them as presenting a complete analogy with the 

 bifid intestine of certain Distoma. 



This intestine exists in the encysted larvaj of the Echinorhynchi, 

 but is atrophied and represented only by the menisci in most of the 

 adults, although, as above stated, it persists in some. The fact of 

 the presence of a bifurcate intestine in the Echinorhynchi approxi- 

 mates those worms to the Trematoda, and removes them from the 

 Nematoda, with which they have hitherto been classed. — Comptes 

 Rendus, December 12, 1881, p. 1054. 



