176 DR. F. E. BEDDARD ON THE 



More recently* v. Linstow has described under the name of 

 Aphanobothrium catenata, a worm which is really Amabilia lamelli- 

 gera, as Fuhrmann was able to state t from an examination of the 

 original material. It is clear from the figures and description 

 given by v. Linstow, that the scolex of the individual represented 

 by him was in the same retracted condition that it presented in 

 my example. It is stated by this author that the " scolex [is] 

 not visible externally," and that there are four suckers and a 

 median fifth sucker which "opens outwards through a dorso- 

 ventral slit." Hooks are stated to be absent. In spite of the 

 ■correct description of four suckers and a median sucker (which is 

 of course the retracted rostellum), this author states that the 

 worm is " destitute of scolex" ! 



Diamare, the founder of the genus, in a communication J dealing 

 with Amabilia, published subsequently to Cohn's memoir, gave 

 no further information about the scolex ; in the earlier descrip- 

 tion § his examples had been stated to lack a scolex. There is thus 

 no information || about the scolex of Amabilia other than that 

 contained in the memoirs of Cohn and v. Linstow. I find myself 

 to be not absolutely in accord with either of those zoologists in 

 every detail. 



In my specimen the head (text-fig. 1) was so completely retracted 

 as to have no external sign of its existence save a slit-like gap 

 anteriorly. It was not until the head end of the Cestode had 

 been investigated by horizontal sections that the scolex could be 

 studied. The first remarkable fact about it is its very small size. 

 It is hardly more than an eighth of a millimetre in breadth and 

 is, as Owen said, of a subglobular shape. In view of the fact 

 that the diameter of the widest segments is 8 or 9 millimetres, 

 the minute size of the head is noteworthy. It can hardly form 

 an effective anchor for the unwieldy body ; and the condition of 

 the rostellar armature, to which I shall refer immediately, bears 

 out the same idea. While v. Linstow denies the existence of 

 hooks, Cohn describes — not hooks it is true, but " Hakentaschen." 

 It is on this authority, I imagine, that the genus Amabilia is 

 defined by both Ransom and Fuhrmann as possessing an armed 

 rostellum. 



In my quite complete series of sections through the scolex, 

 which was fully retracted, the outer sheath of the rostellum was 

 composed of muscular fibres running in a direction transverse to 

 the longitudinal axis of the rostellum. Between individual fibres 

 were here and there spaces which seem to be the " Hakentaschen " 

 of Cohn. Like Cohn, I could discover no evidence of hooks 

 within these spaces, which certainly, as he says, must, if present, be 



* Spolia Zeylanica, iii. 1906, p. 185. 



f Zool. Jahrb. Suppl.-Bd. x. 1908, p. 88. 



t CB. Bakt. u. Paras, xxvi. p. 780. 



§ Ibid. xxi. p. 862. 



|| Assuming of course that Tania macrorhyncha of Rudolphi (see Wedl, SB. 

 Akad. Wien, xviii. 1856, p. 18) is not an Amabilia but, as generally held, a 

 Sckistottenia. 



