SEA-FISHERIES LABORATORY. 281 



in these latter specimens the infection was not nearly so 

 strong as in the earlier specimens. The emaciated con- 

 dition may be compared with the condition of the so-called 

 " acute cestode tuberculosis " produced by feeding experi- 

 ments with the proglottides of tapeworms. In some 

 experiments made by Simonds and Cobbold*, in 1865, it 

 was shown that the administration with food of the ripe 

 proglottides of Taenia medio canellata to a young, healthy 

 calf produced diseased symptoms, distress of breathing, 

 and other evidences of illness, with a subsequent loss of 

 flesh. The calf recovered latterly, and when subjected 

 to post mortem examination cysticercus larva? were 

 found in the superficial muscles. The condition of the 

 dabs referred to here is quite analogous, and was probably 

 produced by the ingestion of sporocysts containing dis- 

 tomid larvae. Here, too, the larvae were found only in the 

 superficial muscles. Recovery probably takes place, as 

 the larger fishes found infected contained only two or three 

 cysts, and the emaciation was only well marked in those 

 fishes in which the larvae were present in large numbers. 



G aster ostomum gracilescens (Kudolphi) (PL IV., figs. 7 and 8). 

 (From the brain membranes of Gadidae.) 



This worm was first noticed by Mr. Scott in our 

 district in a specimen of the somewhat rare Gadoid, 

 Phycis blennoides, which was cast ashore at Piel late in 

 1903. On dissecting the specimen the brain membranes 

 were seen to be the site of numerous minute round or oval 

 bodies, which were evidently the encysted cercariae of some 

 trematode. The same bodies were subsequently found 

 round the brain in several haddock dissected in the fisher- 

 men's classes of 1903, and small cod TJ-8J inches long, 



* Proceedings Key. Soc. London, Vol. 14, 1865, pp. 214-220. 



