38 THE GEELONG NATURALIST. 
supervision of Mr. John E. Bennett, through whose untiring efforts 
this important branch of our work has been established. 
Future issues of “The Geelong Naturalist” will contain the 
meteorological records. ‘ 
In this issue we publish a List of Birds of the Geelong and Cape 
Otway District. Out of 393 of our Victorian Fauna, Class IT, Aves— 
Birds, in these districts alone there are 225 to be obtained. 
We are pleased to find that the Journal of the Club is being 
appreciated outside of Australia. Applications having recently been 
made through the issue of the Journal, from Canada, Scotland, 
France, America and other countries for exchange in Botanical, 
Zoological and Geological specimens. 
Members are notified that the Annual Meeting of the Club will 
be held on the 28th June, 1898. 
PARASITES AFFECTING DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 
Bx H. S. Kxrr. 
Read before the Geelong Field Naturalists' Club. 
Tuer study of Parasites, termed Helminthology, makes one of 
the most interesting studies that a man can take up. For 
beginning, as it does, with life in its most rudimentary form, 
it enables one to trace the various forms of life from the lowest 
of the animal world to that complex being called man. 
A Parasite may be defined as a living organism obtaining 
its’nourishment at the expense of another living organism. 
Parasites include both animal and vegetable forms of life. Every 
animal appears to act as a host to its own peculiar parasite, if 
not as a host of one common to most animals. Even parasites 
may act as the host of other parasites; for example, take the 
Cattle Tiek, which no doubt you have all had brought before 
your notice through the medium of our daily papers, and which, 
at the present time, is producing such ravages in the cattle 
herds of Queensland and confined areas of New South Wales. 
This Cattle Tick is found embedded in the hide of the animal 
which it infests. By the parasite embedding itself in the hide itthus, 
more or less, penetrates the hide, and so destroys the greater portion 
of it. But it does not stop here, for the Tick harbours a micro- 
organism which gains entrance to the animal system through the 
integument surrounding the Tick, and entering the blood (vascular) 
system, produces the disease known as Red Water (Hemoturea). 
Some parasites have to undergo various stages in different species of 
animals in order to arrive at a sexually mature age; whilst others 
undergo all the necessary stages, from the oyum to reproduction, in 
the one and the same animal. 
As an example of those requiring various animals to complete 
their circle I think the one most familiar to all of us is the Hydatid 
