OUR DOMESTICATED ANIMALS. 125 



out (Trichosoma cati, and Gheir acanthus rohustus) ; but 

 the most important of all the feline nematodes is a little 

 worm, first described by Prof. Leuckart. This is the 

 Olulanus tricuspis. 



Whilst the full-grown Olulanus only measures about 

 the l-25th of an inch, its embryos are, for so small a 

 creature, of almost gigantic size. The adult worm 

 resides in the lining membrane of the stomach. The 

 young of this parasite, like Trichina?, are apt to migrate 

 within the body of the feline host. They thus become 

 encysted within the lungs and liver ; but not in any other 

 of the visceral organs. I have seen tens of thousands of 

 them occupying the lungs ; the infested animal perishing 

 in consequence of the inflammatory action set up by their 

 presence. 



A certain number of the embryos of Olulanus escape 

 by the bowel of the host. These when swallowed by 

 mice become encysted within the little rodents' muscles, 

 very much after the fashion of Trichina} ; so that one 

 may say the mice become olulanised in the same way that 

 we say people or animals become trichinised. All this has 

 been experimentally proved by Leuckart, who fed a cat 

 with olulanised mouse-flesh, and afterwards found the 

 escaped young in the cat's alimentary canal. As, how- 

 ever, these encapsuled Olulani from the mouse had not 

 become sufficiently advanced in their larval organisation, 

 Leuckart did not succeed in rearing the sexually mature 

 parasite in the feline stomach, but there could be no 

 doubt as to the ultimate destiny of the encapsuled 

 young. 



If we include the wild host, five species of tapeworm 

 have been described as infesting the cat. One of these 

 (Tamia crassicollis) , which is common to both the tame 



