42 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LIII. No. 1359 



the building call for a three-story brick and 

 limestone structure, 40 by 180 feet. In ad- 

 dition to this special appropriation, the legis- 

 lature will be asked to increase the regular 

 state biennial appropriation from $150,000 to 

 about $225,000, to help meet increased costs. 



Dr. Henry Cuthbert Bazett has been ap- 

 pointed professor of pliysiology in the Med- 

 ical School of the University of Pennsylvania 

 to succeed Dr. Henry T. Eeichert, who retired 

 last year. Dr. Bazett is the Cheselden Welsh 

 lecturer of clinical physiology at Oxford, 

 England, and has been connected with St. 

 Thomas' Medical School. 



Dr. S. a. Mahood, who has been in charge 

 of investigations on wood cellulose and essen- 

 tial oils at the U. S. Forest Products Labora- 

 tory, Madison, Wis., for the past three years, 

 has become associate professor in charge of 

 organic chemistry at Tulane University. 



Dr. Kenneth D. Blaokfan, associate pro- 

 fessor of ijediatrics at the Johns Hopkins 

 Medical School, has been appointed to the 

 professorship of pediatrics at the Medical 

 College of the University of Cincinnati. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE 



LEUCOCHLORIDIUM IN AMERICA 



Since I published the description of Leuco- 

 chloridium prohlematicum} Dr. H. A. Pilsbry 

 has very kindly called by attention to three 

 articles which deal with members of this 

 genus. All of these are works on conehology 

 and are merely incidental to descriptions of 

 certain snails, yet they are interesting since 

 they show that collectors of mussels were 

 more or less familiar with the parasite before 

 parasitologists had studied it in America. 



The first article is that of Dall,^ who writes : 



A singular sausage-shaped parasite, of which 

 one end is attenuated into a slender tube, is 



1 Magath, T. B., " Leueoohloridum proilemati- 

 cum N. sp.," Jour. Farasit., 1920, VI., 105-115. 



2 DaU, W. H., ' ' Instructions for Collecting Mol- 

 lusks and Other Useful Hints for the Concholo- 

 gist," U. S. National Museum, Bull. 39, Part G, 

 1892, p. 10. 



found in Sucdnea. The soft parts of the snail 

 thus affected are much distorted. The parasite is 

 one phase of a Distome or fluke-worm, and is of 

 a dark brown color and over an inch in length. 

 It is known as Leucochloridium americanum Dall. 

 An analogous species has been described from 

 Trench Suceineas, which is of a mottled green. 

 This parasite attains its development in the in- 

 testines of thrushes which feed on Suocinea, and 

 may perhaps be fatal to these birds. 



Bryant Walker^ refers to a Leucochloridium 

 species as follows: 



S. ovalis Gld. Abundant everywhere. This 

 species is occasionally infested by a species of 

 Leuchchloridimn similar to the L. paradoxum 

 Cams, found in the S. putris L. of Europe and 

 figured by Baudon in Jour, de Conch., V., 27, PI. 

 X., Fig. 6. In the same journal (V. 28, p. 205) is 

 published a note from the late Thomas Bland, re- 

 cording a similar occurrence in a specimen of S. 

 ohliqua Say. 



Finally Hanham* states: 



Suocinea obliqua Say (St. Charles Biver). . , . 

 In cleaning some of these shells taken on Novem- 

 ber 8, 1891, a few of the finest living specimens 

 contained peculiar parasite, reference to which is 

 made by Dr. Dall in his useful pamphlet "In- 

 structions for Collecting MoUusks, etc.," (Leuco- 

 chloridium). 



Since Dall gave the specimen a name some 

 consideration of it is necessary. It is of 

 course impossible to identify the worm since 

 he did not describe it. The sporocyst was 

 evidently more than one inch in length. The 

 only other descriptive statement is that it " is 

 of a dark brown color." If one is to construe 

 this expression to mean that the sporocyst is 

 solid brown, it is certainly not Leucochlori- 

 dium prohlematicum Magath. From the text 

 it seems to me one xjdHi not assume anything 

 else. ■iiij9-ij-i 



It is interesting to note that all early refer- 

 ences to the finding of the parasite in Amer- 



3 Walker, B., ' ' The Shell-bearing MoUusea of 

 Michigan," Nautilus, 1892, VI., 18. 

 species as follows: 



* Hanham, A. W., ' ' Notes on the Land Shells 

 of Quebec City and District," Nautilus, 1897, X., 

 102. 



