j74 Prof. F. J. Bell on some Parasites of Fishes. 
to my friend Dr. Orley, of the National Museum of Buda- 
Pest, whose contributions to and accurate knowledge of hel- 
minthological subjects is so well known. 
In the present condition of fishery problems it will be well, 
I think, to publish Dr. Orley’s list, (a) as it is the first contri- 
bution to our knowledge of the parasites of Indian fishes, (8) 
as a stimulus to collectors to search for Entozoic forms, and 
(y) as a possible source of comfort to those who are anxious 
as to the effects of eating fishes infested with such parasites as 
these. 
At the foot of his list Dr. Orley says that all the parasites 
that were sent to him were in the cystic stage of unknown 
species of tapeworms; the history, however, of Anthocephalus 
hippoglosst and A. elongatus has been traced by no less an 
authority than Von Siebold, who has shown* that they are the 
cystic stages of Tetrarhynchus corollatus. Now this Cestode, 
when adult, lives only in the digestive tracts of rays and dog- 
fishes ; and as we know, therefore, its two hosts we may feel 
confident that man may eat fishes such as Carane or Arius 
without any danger of being infested with Anthocephalus. 
So far as we are justified in arguing from the known to the 
unknown, we may expect that the parasites whose cystic stages 
are here recorded, but whose tapeworm condition has not yet 
been traced, will be found, likewise, to have their other host 
in some animal with whom the bony fishes have come for a 
longer time, and still come, into more frequent contact than 
they do with man; some shark or dogfish is, almost certainly, 
the second host. 
On this matter, however, we must wait for the definite 
knowledge which is dependent on experimental investigation. 
This exposition of our present ignorance brings us, in the 
next place, to observe that, of the eight species represented 
in the collection, two are new to science, though Dr. Orley 
very properly abstains from giving a name to an imma- 
ture form. <A percentage of twenty-five unknown forms in a 
collection shows that much remains to be done before we can 
be said to have any thing like a fair knowledge of the Hel- 
minthology of the Indian seas. Definite knowledge of the 
parasites of fishes, though by no means the first, is a most 
important factor in the solution of those problems which 
are of interest and importance not only to the zoologist, but to 
those that catch and sell and those that buy and live on fish. 
The following gives, in the third column, Dr. Orley’s de- 
terminations :— 
* Zeitschr. f. wiss. Zool. ii. p. 241. 
