THE ANIMAL PARASITES 615 
What other work there is is scattered where-not in lit- 
erature — general biological, medical and veterinary. That 
at London has been conspicuous through the observations 
of Plinuner and of Beddard on filarige and cestodes 
respectively, while the work of Nicoll must not fail 
of mention. 
That the reader may the better appraise the 
sections of our own work which are to follow I wish 
at once to indicate their material basis. Ordinarily 
only the larger parasites are looked for at the autopsy 
table and there must be special indications to demand 
search for the finer ones. Those of microscopic size, 
or so minute as to be overlooked in the guise of 
seeds, vegetable fibres, etc., have not, both here and 
elsewhere, been routinely studied as have macroscopic 
ones.(l) From our autopsies there have accumulated 
records of nearly 900 parasites — some determined generi- 
cally, others but as to order. The parasites have in 
greatest part been preserved and are available for fur- 
ther study; in the past, special groups have been culled 
out from time to time and examined. Where conditions 
have been pressing, as in certain epizootics, investigations 
have amounted to more than observations and descrip- 
tions, and received detailed laboratory examinations with 
more or less animal experimentation as the occasion 
demanded. 
The foregoing may suffice to apprise the reader that 
the subject of wild-animal parasites has been but broached 
so that data are especially incomplete on life histories 
— a phase most important in relation to hygiene ; but in 
spite of this and although the statistics are only approxi- 
mate, as is the case in most parasitological work, these 
data have attained to sufficient proportions to justify at 
least a beginning in the matter of collating and general- 
^ There are certain exceptions to this, as with Xicoll's (Proc. Zool. 
Soc. London, 1912, p. 858) careful search for trematodes with sieves, but 
this means a separate research, and is incompatible with the all-round, 
general policies of present routine laboratory organization. 
