48 
Description of a Species of Trematode from the Indian 
Elephant, with Remarks on its Affinities. By T. 
Spencer Cobbold, M.D , F.R.S., F.L.S. 
(Read at the Meeting of the British Association at Norwich.) 
On the 24th of June of the present year I received a small 
bottle containing two flukes. It was accompanied by a note 
from Dr. Baird, F.R.S., stating that the specimens had been 
transmitted to him from India by Dr. Hugh Cleghorn. On 
the phial itself was a brief notice to the following effect : — 
Distoma taken from Liver of Elephant at Rangoon, forwarded 
for classification to Professor Cobbold by Vet.-Surgeon J. 
Thacker. Madras Army.” This is all I know of the history 
of these two entozoa. On naked-eye inspection it was clear 
to me that they were identical in character with a larger 
series of specimens previously exhibited by Professor Huxley 
during the delivery of a recent course of lectures at the 
Royal College of Surgeons. Having communicated to Pro- 
fessor Huxley the facts as above stated, I received permission 
to make use of his set of specimens, originally fifteen in 
number, for the purposes of comparison and description. 
This series was placed in Mr. Flower’s hands last February, 
and six of the individuals were subsequently selected and 
mounted, with the view to their being added to the valuable 
collection of entozoa contained in the Hunterian Museum. 
The first thing to be determined is as to whether or not 
these flukes are new to science. In this relation, therefore, 
I have to remark that so far back as the year 1847, Dr. 
Jackson, in his ‘ Descriptive Catalogue of the Anatomical 
Museum of the Boston Society for Medical Improvement,’ 
incidentally mentions the occurrence of flukes from the Indian 
elephant. Though several examples were removed from the 
biliary ducts and duodenum, along with many specimens of 
Ascaris lonchoptera, it does not appear that any of them 
have been properly described. In all likelihood (if the flukes 
are still preserved in the Boston Museum) it will be found 
that they specifically correspond with those in our possession. 
I may add that the late C. M. Diesing, in the appendix to 
his well-known ‘ Systema Helminthum,’ had already, in 
1850, noticed Jackson’s statement (vol. ii, p. 560), and also 
subsequently in his more recent ‘ Revision der Mvzelmin- 
then’ (p. 50). In the last-named work, which bears the 
date of 1858, Diesing still regarded the entozoon as a doubt- 
fully distinct form, allowing it, however, to appear under the 
title of Distomum elephantis. In my synopsis of the Disto- 
