298 ENTOZOA. 



mencement of the uterine canal is a large oval body, considered by 

 Escliriclit to be glandular (Knaueldriise), but wliich Leuckart, 

 witli more correct definition, denominates tlie ovary. Its connec- 

 tion witli the vitelligene glands on either side, though not fully 

 estabhshed, seems to be very similar to that which obtains in the 

 tapeworms generally. 



Finally, it only remains for me to add, that the ova do not 

 escape after the ordinary method, but by the bursting of the over- 

 distended uterus when the joints are sexually mature. This mode 

 of egg-discharge though, to a certain extent, peculiar, occurs in 

 several other cestodes, and likewise in other kinds of entozoa, as, for 

 example, in the nematode species called Sderostoma syngamus. It 

 is not common, therefore, in full-grown Bothriocephali to find a 

 whole series of joints thus lacerated, and emptied, more or less 

 completely, of their egg-contents. There is also another pecu- 

 liarity which afiects this species even more strikingly than it does 

 the Taenia mediocanellata. I allude to its tendency to form mon- 

 strosities. The occurrence of segments with double sexual open- 

 ings is so extremely common that Leuckart avers that he has 

 scarcely examined a single specimen of Bothriocephalus latus with- 

 out detecting evidences of this strange malformation. The abnor- 

 mahty, moreover, is not confined to the external parts, but afiects 

 the internal organs ; so that, according to Leuckart' s interpreta- 

 tion, we have a double series of joints placed side by side, their 

 outer halves becoming well developed at the expense of the con- 

 joined and atrophied inner ones. Sometimes, indeed, one lateral 

 segment altogether dwarfs its neighbour, adding confusion to the 

 other irregularities. 



19. Bothriocephalus cordatus. 



B. cordatus, Leuckart. 



This species is new to science, and has only very recently been 

 described by Leuckart, who received about twenty specimens fi:'om 

 the eminent naturahst, Professor Steenstrup. These examples were 



