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DOLICHOPERA MAC ALP IN I n. sp„ A TREMATODE 
PARASITE OF AUSTRALIAN POISONOUS SNAKES. 
By WILLIAM NICOLL, M.A., D.Sc., M.D., D.P.H. (London). 
In 1911, I received from Dr Georgina Sweet of Melbourne University, 
two lots of Trematodes stated to have been collected respectively from 
the intestine of the tiger snake, Notechis scutatus, and the lungs of the 
copperhead snake, Denisonia superba. In 1916, Dr Burton Cleland, of 
the Bureau of Microbiology, Sydney, sent me two tubes containing 
similar parasites, obtained from the peritoneum of an unidentified 
snake killed on Flinders Island. 
In sending me her material Dr Sweet informed me that an unnamed 
parasitic Trematode had been described from the copperhead snake by 
McAlpine 1 in 1891, and a comparison of the specimens with his descrip¬ 
tion led me to the conclusion that they were identical with those observed 
by that writer. 
McAlpine’s description, so far as it goes, is clear and easy of inter¬ 
pretation. His promise of a more detailed account has to the best of 
my knowledge not been fulfilled, and the present paper is an attempt 
to remedy this omission. 
In investigating some Queensland Trematodes I encountered in the 
intestinal canal of a carpet snake, Python variegatus, two specimens of 
a Trematode which bore a close resemblance to those from the above- 
mentioned snakes. The resemblance, however, was only a general one 
and there was no hesitation in separating the forms as distinct species. 
The forms from the carpet snake were designated the type of a new genus, 
Dolichopera, and the form observed by McAlpine was provisionally 
included in the same genus under the name D. macalpini 1 . 
The normal habitat of McAlpine’s species is somewhat doubtful. 
He himself commented upon this, as he found the parasites not only 
1 It should be remarked that McAlpine’s specimens were inadvertently referred to the 
tiger snake but at the same time the scientific name quoted was that of the copperhead 
snake. 
