304 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



ON A MYXOSPORIDIAN INFECTION OF GADUS 

 ESMARKII. 



By J as. Johnstone. 



WITH A NOTE ON THE IDENTIFICATION OF 

 THE PARASITE. 



By H. M. Woodcock, D.Sc, Lister Institute of 

 Preventive Medicine. 



I. 



In 1889 Giinther* first recorded the presence of the 

 Norway Pout, Gadus esmarkii, in British waters. This 

 fish, previously known only in Scandinavian waters, was 

 noted by Gunther in the Firth of Clyde, and in some of 

 the Western Scottish Lochs, at depths varying from 26 

 to 80 fathoms. Speaking of the characters of the fish 

 Giinther says, " Many of them suffered from a singular 

 affection of the eye, namely the whole eyeball, and also a 

 greater or lesser part of the iris, being covered with cysts 

 containing a cheesy matter." 



Again in 1900 Fultont makes a similar observation. 

 Gadus esmarkii, belonging to the so-called Scottish and 

 Scandinavian types, was found by him in the Northern 

 part of the North Sea, where it appears to be fairly 

 abundant, and in the Firth of Clyde. Fulton says that 

 " a very large proportion of those taken in the Firth of 

 Clyde had one or both eyeballs affected in the manner 

 described by the author named [Giinther], (the cysts, 

 however, containing fine granules) but no specimen from 

 the North Sea was observed to be so affected." 



In March of 1906, a Norway Pout was caught in a 



* Proc. Roy. Soc. Edinburgh, vol. 15, 1889, p. 212. 

 Kept. Scottish Fishery Board, 19, pt. 3, 1900, pp. 282-4. 



