742 
SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 
is given to the details of internal organization. Collectors of these 
worms are earnestly desired to make coloured sketches of fresh 
specimens. 
Notes on Flukes.* * * § — Dr. P. Sonsino thinks that Disfomum trigono - 
cephalum is found in members of three different orders of Mammals on 
account of their partaking of the same kind of food. D. ovo-caudatum 
lives in the stomach and intestine of Dana , as well as in the mouth ; 
previous observers would seem not to have seen perfect specimens of the 
egg, for its tail is at least from four to six times as long as the length 
of the body of the egg. The embryo is not only armed with spines at 
its anterior end, but possesses cilia. With regard to D. baraldi , which 
lives in Zamenis viridiflavus , the author suspects that, contrary to the 
usual course, the same animal plays the part of intermediate and final 
host. 
Liver-Flukes of Cats.f — Dr. M. Braun makes a revision of the 
species of Distomum found in the domestic cat and allied species. He 
found they were common, and that of 34 cats D. truncatum was found 
in 3, D. albidum sp. n. in 25, and D. conus in 27. Of these three species 
he gives detailed descriptions, and he enters very fully into the literary 
history of his subject. 
Life-cycle of Bilharzia hgematobia.J — Dr. P. Sonsino, from obser- 
vations made in South Tunis, comes to the conclusion that the life-cycle 
of this Trematode differs somewhat from the typical history of digenetic 
forms. Its intermediate host is a small crustacean, into which the 
embryo penetrates, and where it lies encapsuled till its host is taken in 
by man with drinking water. 
Helminthology of West Coast of Norway. § — We have received so 
long after its publication Herr E. Lonnberg’s report of his helmintho- 
logical observations on the west coast of Norway, that we must be 
content to call the attention of specialists to it. 
Echinoderma. 
Nutrition of Echinoderms. || — Dr. M. Chapeaux finds that the radial 
glands of Asteroidea may be compared, from the physiological point of 
view, with the pancreas of Vertebrates ; their secretion converts starch 
into glucose, fibrin into peptone, and emulsifies fats ; the walls of the 
oesophagus and stomach secrete ferments which convert fibrin and starch. 
The most important points in his observations are the facts which go to 
show that the amoebocytes of the coelomic cavity play an important part 
in continuing the work of digestion and of excreting the residue of the 
food. Thus, fats are broken up and dissolved in the coelom, the droplets 
being swallowed by amoebocytes, within which, and under the influence 
of an acid ferment, the fat is broken up. 
On peptones, on the other hand, neither the coelomic phagocytes nor 
the fluid of the coelom have any influence. The author thinks it is 
* Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1893, pp. 496-500. 
t Centralbl. f. Bakteriol. u. Parasitenk., xiv. (1893) pp. 383-92, 422-8. 
% Proc. Verb. Soc. Tosc. Pisa, 11 August, 1893, 1 p. 
§ Bih. Svensk. Yet. Akad. Hdlgr., xvi. IV. No. 5 (1890) 47 pp. 
|| Bull, Acad. Sci. Belg., lxiii. (1893) pp. 227-32. 
