In April, 1931, a collection of helminth parasites was received by the Imperial Bureau of Agricultural Parasitology from Mr. Bodkin, the Government Entomologist at Jerusalem. The specimens appear to have been collected by Native Meat Inspectors from slaughter houses, farms, etc., ranging through eleven different localities, from Hebron and Gaza, west of the Dead Sea, in the south; to Acre and Safad, north of the Sea of Galilee. The collection comprised 117 bottles of material, much of which had been rather poorly preserved. For such a large assortment of material the number of species is relatively small, as so many of the parasites were sent in duplicate. There does not appear to be any species new to science, and the following note is intended as a contribution to the zoögeography of a country whose parasitic fauna is somewhat inadequately known.

(1) Experiments have been conducted to investigate the part played by Vitamin A in the prophylaxis of helminthiasis. Heterakis gallinæ in the chicken and Parascaris equorum in albino rats were used.

(2) The evidence tends to show that in Heterakis infestation the vitamin content of the diet has no effect on the course of the infestation. In Ascariasis in rats, however, the vitamin affects significantly the hatching, survival and rate of development of the larvae within the host.

(3) The writer can put forward no reason for this difference except to suggest that it may lie in. the life history of the parasites. Considering her own results and those of previous workers as cited in the introductory part of this paper, it seems obvious that the vitamin is effective in cases where the parasite comes into close contact with the host tissues.

(4) Some notes on the viability of eggs are added.

1. Plerocercoid larval stages of Diphyllobothrium latum (Linn.), in 0·2 molar sodium chloride can tolerate temperature values between −8° and 55°C., the survival time varying from 15 minutes at 54° C. to 60 hours at 20° C., and diminishing gradually from 24+ hours at zero to non-survival at −8°C. The optimum range of values lies between 38° and −2·8° C. It is suggested that the median point of the optimum range approximates to the mean summer temperature of the host fish and that variations in temperature from this mean point restrict the survival time value of the intramuscular plerocercoid phase.

2. They can tolerate concentrations of HCl between 0·3 and 0·001 molar if 0·5 per cent. of pepsin be present, and concentrations of Na2CO2 between 0·2 and 0·001 molar, when 3 per cent. of pancreatin is present, for the length of time they would normally be subject to canine or human gastric and duodenal digestion.

3. They can tolerate the component salts of Ringer-Locke solution when in concentrations between 0·2 and 0·001 molar for periods of time varying with the concentration and with the chemical structure of the salt. The addition of other electrolytes to decimolar NaCl does not increase its value as a medium for the larvae.

4. The behaviour of plerocercoids in electrolyte solutions of 0·2–0·001 molar concentration is essentially similar, and initial period of activity being followed by a period of contraction and latent mobility—which, however, may be omitted—passing into a period of endosmotic immobility and disintegration. It is suggested that activity is stimulated by the influence of absorbed CI' upon muscular irritability and that depression of activity is induced by absorption of the kation of neutral salts or of the whole molecule of acids or alkalies.

About the middle of July, 1932, red galls were discovered on blades of grass in a meadow at Winches Farm, St. Albans, by Mr. W. A. Macdonald, who drew the attention of the writer to the presence of nematodes within them. Subsequent search on this and an adjoining meadow proved that the galls were widely distributed, on the same kind of grass, over the whole area, whilst some days later similar galls were found on a bank by the side of the main road from St. Albans to Hatfield. The grass was identified as Agrostis tenuis Sibth. (Agrostis vulgaris With.), popularly called Fine Bent-grass.

During the examination of numerous specimens of Bilharzia collected from domesticated and wild ruminants in this Territory a species of bloodfluke, closely related to the vector of intestinal bilharziasis in the Far East, was observed. For this species the name Bilharzia margrebowiei sp. nov. is designated in honour of my wife, Dr. Margaret Gregor Leroux (née Bowie), for the self sacrificing way in which she has assisted me in the past.