194 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
The whole lies loosely among the muscle fibres, which are 
represented in section round it. 
It is, of course, impossible to say what is the precise 
nature of these intrusive bodies. But it is highly 
probable that they are the eggs of some internal parasite 
of the fish. They can hardly be larvae, like, for instance, 
those of a Z'r2china, for in such a case some vestige of 
hooks, spines, or some other fairly durable organs of the 
larvae would have been visible. If they are eggs, the 
structure of the bodies is easily explained by supposing 
that the concentric shells which make them up are formed 
from the capsules of the egg. Certainly they are 
degenerated bodies, as is indicated by the presence of the 
highly refringent calcareous corpuscles, structures which 
seem almost invariably to be produced when the eggs or 
larvae of an entozoon die in the tissues of an animal 
incapable of acting as its host. How did they reach the 
muscle fibres of the fish? It is probable that, in some way 
or other, the eggs of a parasite inhabiting some organ of 
the hake had gained admission to the blood stream, and 
were carried along until they reached the capillaries. 
Being larger than some (or most) of the latter, they have 
become arrested there, and the life-history being now 
summarily interrupted, they have died. The outer fibrous 
investment is, then, the remains of the capillary wall,with, 
no doubt, some inflammatory tissue. The Fish Inspector, 
struck with the peculiar appearance of the flesh, promptly 
condemned the fish, and no doubt rightly, since it may 
be stated as a general precept that any very unusual 
structures indicate the undesirability of utilising the flesh 
of an animal in which they occur as human food. But 
in this case it is probable that the flesh of the hake was 
quite harmless. 
