MARINE BIOLOGICAL STATION AT PORT ERIN. 33 



Dr. Annie Porter has just published* a full account 

 of the new parasitic Flagellate, Herpetomonas patellae, which 

 she discovered in the limpet while working at Port Erin last 

 winter. Herpetomonads are known as parasites in flies and 

 other insects, but this is the first one to be found in a mollusc. 

 The parasite was found in the alimentary canal and liver 

 of eight per cent, of the limpets examined at Port Erin. 

 Dr. Porter, Dr. Fantham, and others, have shown that other 

 species of Herpetomonads found in some fleas are of pathogenic 

 importance and may give rise to fatal diseases in rats, mice, 

 or dogs, that may happen to swallow the fleas and so become 

 infected with the parasite. When reduced to eating limpets 

 it will be well to bear in mind that eight per cent, may contain 

 this pathogenic organism, which, by the way, is closely related 

 to the Trypanosoma which is the cause of " sleeping sickness." 

 It is to be hoped that Dr. Porter will extend her investigations 

 to other edible Mollusca so that eventually we may have some 

 idea of the amount of risk, if any, that exists in eating uncooked 

 such excellent food matters as the Oyster, the Mussel and the 

 Scallop. 



Miss H. M. Duvall, B.Sc, during the Easter vacation 

 made some observations on the methods of feeding by means 

 of ciliary currents in the Ascidian, Glavelina lepadiformis, 

 which is found occasionally in rock pools on the Bradda side 

 of Port Erin Bay. It was not easy to get the animals to expand 

 fully and feed freely in captivity, but Miss Duvall succeeded 

 in satisfying herself that a band of accumulated food particles 

 and mucus forms in the interior of the branchial sac, neither 

 along the endostyle, nor yet alongside the dorsal lamina 

 (as described by Orton), but about the middle of the lateral 

 walls midway between dorsal and ventral edges, and from 

 that position is drawn posteriorly straight down into the 

 oesophageal opening which terminates the branchial sac. 



* Parasitology, November 9th, 1914. 



