H5 
A NEW HAEMOGREGARTNE IN AN AFRICAN TOAD 
By J. W. W. STEPHENS, M.D., Cantab., D.P.H. 
WALTER MYERS LECTURER IN TROPICAL MEDICINE, UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL 
OUT of a batch of toads received from Sierra Leone, in October, 1903, five were 
examined by me. Four out of the five were infected with haemogregarines. 
In one toad they were with difficulty found, in the others the haemogregarines 
were fairly plentiful. At a first examination it struck me that the forms present 
differed from any of those described as occurring in reptiles or amphibians. I 
consequently sent a slide to Professor E. A. Minchin, who, from a preliminary 
examination, also agreed that the parasites probably belonged to the genus 
haemogregarina in the sense used by him in his monograph on the sporozoa in 
Lankester's Zoology, and that they probably belonged to a new species. I 
consequently determined to describe the parasites, especially as I found it difficult to 
keep the toads alive. 
It may be well first to describe the classification used by Minchin. 
Order Haemosporidia (Danilewsky). 
Sub-Order I. Haemosporea. 
Genus I. Lankesterella (Labbe, 1899) for Drepanidium (Lankester). The 
haemogregarine is not more than three-quarters the length of 
the blood corpuscle it inhabits. 
Type — L. ranarum or more correctly L. minima (Chaussat). 
Genus II. Karyolysus (Labbe, 1894), The haemogregarine does not exceed 
the corpuscle in length. 
Type — K. lacertarum (Danil.) from lizards. 
Genus III. Haemogregarina (Danilewsky, 1897) (syn. Danilewskya, Labbe, 
1895). The body of the parasite when adult exceeds the 
corpuscle in length, and is bent on itself within it, in a charac- 
teristic manner like the letter U. 
H. lacazei in lizards is the commonest. 
H. magna is the only haemogregarine in the strict sense so tar 
described in amphibians, and it is possible that this is the 
macrogamete of Lankesterella, sp. 
