NEW ASKXUAT. TAI'KWORM. 839 



this supposition. Tiieve, <is it appears to me, the question must be 

 left — in regrettable uncertainty. 



The process of asexual reprofluction by budding which this 

 worm sliows is not entirely unknown among the (Jestoidea, but 

 there are some not unimportant diflerences from what has been 

 recorded in other forms. There are two principal comparisons to 

 be made. 



The first of these is with Cysticercibs longicoUis, the bladder- 

 worm of T(jeit,la crassiceps. It is of further interest from the 

 point of view of tlie present comparison to note that this Cysticercus 

 is also found in a llodent, Arvicola arvalls. l^eside.s the earlier 

 investigators, Prof. M. Jiraun * has studied this form and em- 

 bodied his results iu brief in Bronn's ' Thierreiclis 't. The buds 

 from the Cystlcercl do not apparently [contain a prolongation of 

 the bladder-cavity, " sondern durchweg als solide Wucheiungen 

 der peripheren Schicht der Wand entstehen." This is an obvious 

 point of similarity with my species, where, of course, the buds 

 cannot be continuous with the cavity of the bladder — that is to 

 say, in both cases the buds are solid outgrowths. Furthermore, 

 before being separated off from the paient Cysticercus the attach- 

 ment of the bud dwindles to a narrow stalk precisely as 1 have 

 descril)ed above. Tlie buds, however, in the case of Cysticercus 

 longicoUis seem to be limited to the bladder and always to the 

 hinder end of that ; whereas in my species this is exactly the 

 region where no buds are formed. 



1 believe, however, that a nearer approximation to the condition 

 observable in the species which I describe in the present paper is 

 offered by a worm recently described by IjimaJ with some detail. 

 This is a Plerocercas or Plerocercoid found parasitic in a human 

 being in Japan in cysts in the skin. It appears to give off actual 

 buds, which are, however, more or less irregularly arranged and 

 present nothing of the comparative synnnetry manifested in the 

 species from Fiber zibethicas. The individuals differ in the degree 

 of their budding, some giving off' a large series of slender pro- 

 cesses. These buds are, as in my species, actual outgrowths of the 

 parent stock and not, for instance, connected with the excretory 

 organs or any other definite part of the body. They occur 

 as much at the head end as elsewhere and there differ from the 

 Tapeworm of Fiber zibethicus. There is, however, a resemblance, 

 in that in both cases the more mature buds are not in front of 

 or behind the less mature : there is a complete irregularity in 

 their order of succession. 



The similarity Ijetween the two cases of budding cannot, how- 

 ever, be carried into any detail, since it is obvious that the two 

 worms are not nearly allied. The Plerocercoid described by 



* See Centrall)l. f. Bakt, u. Par. xx. 1896, p. 580; Zool. Anz. 1896, No. 514; ibid. 

 1897, No. 521. These papers are not illustrated. 



t lid. iv. Al)tli. 1 u, p. 1529. 



j " On a new Cestodu Larva parasitic in Man," Journ. Coll. Sci. Japan, xx. 1905. 

 For a reference to this paper I am indebted to Dr. AV. Nicoli. 



56* 



