446 REPORT OF THE HARVARD AFRICAN EXPEDITION 
In five elephants shot in the Belgian Congo, south of New Beni, in the 
Semliki Valley and in the Ituri Forest, upon which necropsies were performed, 
in all large numbers of two species of larvae of flies (Cobboldiinae) were found 
in the stomach. Bequaert has identified these species as Cobboldia loxodontes 
(Brauer) and Rodhainomyia chrysidiformis (Rodhain and Bequaert). Large 
numbers of nematodes of the genus Murshidia were also found in the intestines of 
these animals. Some twenty species of the genus Murshidia have been described 
from elephants, both African and Indian, as well as the rhinoceros. Khalil’ says 
that the parasites found in the African and Indian elephants never belong to the 
same species. Several authors have divided the genus Murshidia into six genera.” 
However, Yorke and Maplestone * after working through the large collections 
of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine of worms from the elephant and 
rhinoceros, have reached the conclusion that the genera Pteridopharynx Lane, 
1914, Memphisia Khalil, 1922 and Henryella Neveu-Lemaire, 1924, are synony- 
mous of Murshidia Lane, 1914. In view of the apparent absence of a mouth 
collar in Buissonia, however, they propose to leave this genus pending further 
investigation. The species represented in our collection of Murshidia have not 
yet been identified by Sandground. 
From a histological study of the sections of the intestine and stomach of the 
elephants, it does not appear that either the Cobboldia or the Murshidia cause any 
important lesions since the mucous membrane of these regions appears normal 
in the sections studied. In one elephant, however, which was shot toward sun- 
set and upon which it was not practicable to perform the necropsy until the 
following morning, the sections of the intestine and spleen show very extensive 
invasion of a fungus, mycelium and spores being found in all parts of them. 
In one elephant there were very numerous small nodules in the skin, each of 
which contained in the center the larva of a fly. ‘These tumors were particularly 
abundant in the skin over the buttocks and hind legs, and consisted of small 
swellings 5 to 8 mm. in diameter. A number of them were excised and placed in 
Zenker’s solution, formalin and alcohol. Some of the larvae of the flies that were 
expressed from the tumors were also placed in the same preservatives. These 
larvae also have been recently encountered by Rodhain,* who has identified the 
fly as Ruttenia loxodontis. Number 387, illustrates the larva of one of these 
flies lying partially in the corium of the skin. As may be seen from the drawing, 
there is marked infiltration about the lower portion of the larva. 
In the elephant’s skin, the papillae are very prominent and of considerable 
height. The stratum corneum, with the stratum mucosum, dips down deeply 
into the corium. It is particularly in these folds as well as in the pores of the 
skin that the young larvae come to rest. Evidently the oval larva then, as it de- 
velops in size and particularly in length, is not able to escape from the narrow 
orifice of the pore of the skin above. Hence, it pushes the epidermis downward 
into the corium for a distance sometimes of nearly a centimeter, producing a 
1 Khalil: Proc. Zool. Soc. of London (1922), p. 205. 
? Moénnig: Trans. Royal Soc. of South Africa (1925-1926), XIII, 313. 
’ Yorke and Maplestone: “Nematode Parasites of Vertebrates’ (1926), p. 81. 
* Rodhain: Ann. de Parasit. Humaine et Comparée (1927), V, 198. 
