FASOIOLA HEPATICA. ]81 



tion of cattle, as well as those also who regard the subject from a 

 wider social point of view. It is even now encouraging to think 

 that when a little more hght shall have unveiled all the missing 

 links now wanting to complete the chain of evidence, the promo- 

 ters of science will more hopefully seek to enlighten those who, in 

 so far as natural history knowledge is concerned, are unwisely cling- 

 ing to the idle " tales of a grandfather." Surely an enlightened 

 pubhc will no longer esteem the vague opinions of a bygone age to 

 be more worthy of credit than the clearly enunciated facts of recent 

 scientific discovery, 



1. The Fasciola. hepatica, or sexually-mature hver- fluke, is 

 especially prevalent in sheep during the spring of the year, at 

 which time it constantly escapes from the ahmentary canal of the 

 host, and is thus transferred to open pasture-grounds. 



2. It has been shown by dissections that the hver of a single 

 sheep may, at any given time, harbour several hundred specimens 

 of the fluke, and it is certain that every mature entozoon wiU con- 

 tain many thousands of minute eggs. 



3. The escaped flukes do not exhibit powers of locomotion 

 sufficient to prove them capable of undertaking an extended migra- 

 tion, but their movements may subserve the purpose of concealing 

 them within the grass or soft soil where they have fallen. Their 

 habit of coiling upon themselves probably facihtates the expulsion 

 of their eggs. 



4. The eggs can only escape from the oviduct of the entozoon 

 one at a time, but there is no doubt whatever that prodigiously 

 large numbers of loose ova are expelled the infested sheep in the 

 same manner as the flukes themselves. 



5. By the dispersing agency of winds, rains, insects, feet of 

 cattle, dogs, rabbits, and other animals, and even by man himself, 

 the eggs are carried in various directions, not a few of them ulti- 

 mately finding their way into pools, ponds, ditches, canals, and 

 running streams. 



6. The freed eggs, at the time of their matmnty, contain ciliated 



