31 
parasite is really the Insectan phase of some Trypanosome*. Patton 
considers that this form is identical with Léger’s “C.” fasciculata. I 
am rather inclined to regard it asa distinct parasite, whether one asso- 
ciates it with a Trypanosome or not; because Novy, McNeal and Tor- 
rey did not find in connection with it the characteristic “grain d’orge” 
phase shewn by Léger’s form and by various other Crithidiae. (This 
is assuming, of course, that the American workers were correct in sepa- 
rating their crithidial parasite from the small forms above discussed.) 
Hence I prefer to retain the name “C.” culicis (N., McN. and T.) for 
this parasite for the present. 
Patton has recently given a detailed account (9) of a Leptomonad 
parasite from C. fatigans in India; this is a quite typical Leptomonas 
(or uniflagellate Herpetomonas, as hitherto understood). I must say 
that, in this paper, Patton appears to have done his best to thoroughly 
confuse the subject of “Crithidia” and Leptomonas, as occurring in 
mosquitoes. Patton actually refers his parasite to Novy, McNeal 
and Torrey’s form, Herpetomonas culicis, although he himself has 
previously recognized that this latter form is a typical Crvthidia! Until 
I had looked through his earlier papers I was quite at a loss to imagine 
whatever he meant. One can only suppose that Patton has calmly trans- 
ferred the specific name of the Crithidia, viz. culicis, to the Leptomonad 
form of the American workers, in utter disregard of the established 
rules of nomenclature, according to which the parasite to which the 
name culicis has been given must retain that specific name, even though 
it be a Crithidia, and not a “Herpetomonas” as the American authors 
considered; just as, similarly, the Leptomonad form must still bear the 
specific name fasciculata bestowed upon it by the American writers. But 
there is no mention of this juggling with specific names in Patton’s 
paper. Readers are left entirely under the impression that he is dealing 
with the parasite described as Herpetomonas culicis by Novy, McNeal 
and Torrey. In summarizing their observations he uses throughout the 
terms H. culicis and Crithidia fasciculata just as the Americans used 
them, saying, for instance, that they found so many mosquitoes to be in- 
fected with Crithidia, so many with Herpetomonas, and so on; (the latter 
generic name should certainly read Crithidia, and the former preferably 
Leptomonas). In the whole of his detailed account, I can find no mention 
whatever of the fact that he is not dealing actually with Novy, 
McNeal and Torrey’s Herpetomonas culicis at all, which is a Cr- 
fhidia, but with a quite different parasite. One can scarcely imagine 
4 It must be remembered that all the Culex investigated by the American 
authors were “wild”, i. e. caught individuals. 
