Sucklers. 9015 
materials that may be placed in my hands. Fisb-parasites, which are very numerous, 
belong to two great classes :—internal parasites, which attack the stomach, liver and 
other organs of the host, and belong to Entozoa,a section of the Annelids; and 
external parasites, which constitute the Cormostomata of Dana (the Epizoa of Owen), 
a remarkable and abnormal division of the Crustacea. These last parasitic Crustacea 
form two divisions; the one lives upon the surface of the fish, can move from place to 
place, anchor itself at will by means of its hook-formed, prehensile antenna, or even 
occasionally leave the fish, and swim freely in the water. The species of this division 
are well known to fishermen as “ fish-lice,” and almost any cod or fresh-run salmon 
will afford examples of them. The other division includes sedentary parasites, having 
the head frequently deeply buried in the tissues of their victim, and can only be 
removed by careful excision. They have no power of locomotion, indeed often almost 
the whole of the external organs are in a rudimentary state, and the animals assume 
the most extraordinary and uncouth forms. These sedentary parasites should be 
sought for on the gills, the eyes, the roof of the mouth, the vent, the fins, and, in the 
case of the skates, in the nostrils. The gills are the parts chiefly affected, but among 
the dog-fish and sharks the vent is a favourite habitat. Little has been done as yet in 
Great Britain among these parasites. The only work that treats of them is Dr. Baird’s 
‘History of British Entomostraca.’ My own collection now includes nearly double 
the number of species there described, and for a considerable number of these I am 
indebted to the activity of my collector, Mr. Laughrin, of Polperro, and to the kind 
co-operation of Mr. Edward, of Banff. If those who have the means of examining 
rare fish taken on the coast would look after the parasites upon them, the result would 
frequently be not only the recording of the occurrence of the fish itself, but also the 
more important discovery of one, two or three animals new to the British Fauna. 
I am induced to make this appeal to the attention of ichthyologists by the record of the 
capture of the sword-fish at Plymouth, a host which sustains two parasites which have 
not hitherto been recorded in our seas. The parasitic Crustacea vary from a quarter 
of an inch to two inches in length. All that is necessary for their preservation is 
careful removal, by excision if necessary, from the body of the fish, and immersion in 
spirits of wine-—Alfred Merle Norman ; Sedgefield, Ferry Hill, February 20, 1864. 
Stoat and Moorhen—Reading Mr. Harting’s anecdote of the weasel (Zool, 8945) 
has recalled to my mind a scene which I witnessed on the 23rd of November, 1862, 
an account of which, I think, will be interesting to the readers of the ‘ Zoologist.” It — 
was a still, sunny morning, and I was taking a quiet stroll by the side of a pond, when 
my attention was attracted by a moorhen rushing at a tremendous pace along the 
bottom of a hedge, and while I was wondering what should have been the cause of this 
sudden movement on the part of the moorhen I heard a second rustling in the hedge, and 
on looking round I caught sight of a stoat scampering along at full pace in the track of 
the moorhen, which latter had in the mean time stopped in a lot of sedge. I watched 
the stoat until he came up to the sedge, expecting every moment to see the moorhen 
start again, but a rustle, followed by a continued fluttering, told me that it was all up 
with him. I waited until the fluttering had ceased, and then walked round to the 
spot, where I found the moorhen dead, with its head drawn into a hole in the ground. 
I found on examination a wound in the head, from which the blood had been sucked, 
