NATIONAL FISHERY CONGRESS. 
197 
attains considerable dimensions — is u eaten as living macaroni.” This statement of 
Leuckart’s has been taken without question and repeated in various forms by different 
writers. Donnadieu (Contribution a l’histoire de la Ligule, Journal d’Anatomie et de 
la Physiologie 1877) repeats the assertion aud adds that many people in Lyons have 
the same habit. Doubtless the truth is that ligulse have been eaten along with the 
fish which harbored them, much as roe is eaten, by persons who did not know the 
real nature of the tidbit, which no doubt, in the blissful ignorance of the eater, 
pleased his palate quite as well as did the flesh which was a part of the fish. 
ACANTHOCEPHALA.' 
The members of this order, so far as my observation goes, are not found in large 
numbers in many species of fish, although they are likely to occur in great number in 
occasional individual hosts, particularly among the flounders ( Pleuronectidce ). The 
most persistently occurring cases of parasitism which I have observed, however, have 
been in this order. I have examined the striped bass ( Roccus lineatus) repeatedly in 
successive summers at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and have rarely found an indi- 
vidual which was not infested with a thorn-head worm ( Ecliinorhynchus proteus). 
Sometimes it occurs in considerable numbers, and almost always penetrates with its 
thorny proboscis the coats of the intestine of its host, thus causing more or less local 
irritation, followed by a waxy degeneration of the tissues. 
There is probably no practical way of counteracting the bad influences of worms 
of this order, since their larval state is passed, in some cases certainly, and in most 
cases probably, in small Crustacea, which constitute a constant and necessary source 
of food for the fish. The same remark which was made in another connection with 
regard to the disposal of the viscera of fish applies here. In no case should the 
viscera of fish be thrown back into the water. In this order the sexes are distinct, and 
the females become at last veritable sacs for the shelter and nourishment of enormous 
numbers of embryos. The importance, therefore, of arresting the development of as 
many embryos as possible is at once apparent. 
NEMATODA. 3 
The round worms are very abundaut, especially in immature stages, in marine 
fishes. In fresh- water fishes they are probably not so abundant. 
I have lately gone over a large collection of nematode parasites of fishes, made in 
part by myself at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, aud in part belonging to the United 
States National Museum, having been collected in various localities. In this collection 
there are nematodes from over 60 species of fish. I have noted some 80 distinct kinds, 
14 of which have to be recorded as u Ascaris species,” they being immature, although free 
in the intestines of their hosts. They plainly belong to the genus Ascaris, but do not 
have distinct characters which will enable one to refer them to species already estab 
lished or to make it advisable to give them new specific names. At least 40 kinds, 
from as many specifically different hosts, I have been obliged to refer to a section 
headed “ Immature nematodes, encapsuled, and for the most part belonging to the 
genus Ascaris. v It would not be profitable to give names to these immature forms, 
since many of them are doubtless different stages in the development of the same 
1 See list of authorities: No. 7, pp. 490-498, pi. v, vi; No. 9; No. 13, pp. 555-556, pi. 65-67. 
2 See list of authorities: No. 13, pp. 557-561, pi. 67; No. 14, pp. 111-112. 
