726 
SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 
of which were found to have Trcmatodes on their gills. Dipledanum 
sequans and Microcotyle sayii were the most common. The Gyrodactyli , 
which are so common on fresh-water fishes, were represented only by 
Tetraonchus van Benedeni. 
Cysticercoids Parasitic in Cypris cinerea.* — Mr. T. B. Rossiter 
describes the presence of cysticercoid parasites in Cypris cinerea. The 
head is about 3/100 in. in diameter, and the suckers are about 1/1000 in. 
wide and 1/800 in. long. The hooks are not unlike those of Taenia 
nana in their shape, and are not more than 1/1200 in. long. 
5. Incertae Sedis. 
Rotifer Parasitic on Vaucheria.f — M. F. Debray has followed out 
the life-history of Notommata Werneckii Ehrb., which he finds parasitic 
on Vaucheria geminata , terrestris, pachyderma , and sessilis, but not on 
V. synandra. After emerging from the egg within the gall, the young 
rotifer moves about freely for a time, finally escaping from the gall, 
and almost immediately again endeavours to effect an entrance into a 
Vaucheria- tube, rejecting all other algae with which it may happen to 
come into contact. It at length pierces a tube and wanders about 
within it for some hours, until it finally settles itself in a gall. It here 
lays eggs of three different kinds ; the first kind during the spring, with 
thin smooth membrane, followed by two other forms of lasting eggs with 
spiny membrane. The author has never seen the male rotifer, and 
believes that this production of eggs takes place parthenogenetically. 
After depositing its eggs, the rotifer dies and disappears almost entirely. 
The author dissents from Balbiani’s view that the parasite inhabits 
only modified fertile branches of the Vaucheria ; he regards the 
structures in which they are found as true galls, the result of injury to 
the tube caused by the puncture of the parasite. 
Rotifers and Hepaticae.J — Prof. F. Delpino records the fact that a 
rotifer (named by Zelinka Callidina synibiotica) is commonly found in 
the drop of moisture retained by the recurved margin of the leaves of 
many Hepaticse, and especially in the pitcher-shaped leaves of species 
of Frullania. No observations have, however, as yet justified the specific 
name. 
Distyla and Cathypna.§ — Mr. J. E. Lord suggests that the genus 
Distyla is identical with that of Cathypna ; and that Mr. Gosse, to whom 
the latter genus is due, constructed it in mistake, through hurry and 
“failing powers,” out of those specimens of the former genus which he 
happened to observe in a contracted state. Mr. Lord also gives 
drawings of two supposed new species of Cathypna , which he names 
C. Gossei and C. Hudsoni, and which he thinks that Mr. Gosse would have 
called Distyla. , had he seen them only in their extended condition. On 
the point of classification raised by Mr. Lord, it is enough to say that 
Mr. Gosse’s own descriptions and figures of C. luna , C. sulcata , and 
C. rusticula show that he had seen these creatures extended, and yet 
* .Tonrn. of Microscopy, iii. (1890) pp. 241-7 (2 pis.). 
t Bull. Sclent. France et Belg., xxii. (1890) (1 pi. and 9 figs.). See Notarisia, v. 
(1890) p. 1058. Cf. this Journal, ante , p. 043. 
+ Malpighia, iv. (1890) pp. 32-3 (1 pi.). § Sciencc-Gossip, 1890, pp. 201-2. 
