When the 26th Madras Light Cavalry were reconstituted at Bangalore in 1903 the regiment was joined by a couple of squadrons of men from an Imperial Service Regiment in the north, and, after these men had been at Bangalore some months, many developed guinea-worms, our wards becoming filled with cases showing the worms in all stages of delivery. It took many days or weeks to wind out the worms and so many were broken in the operation that the number of men rendered unfit for duty became a serious matter. I consequently made enquiries as to methods employed for hastening the exit of the worm, since its rupture during extraction always led to severe suppuration.

In 1851 Macquart described two new species of the Dipterous genus Cyrtoneura from Tasmania, under the names of Cyrt. longicornis and Cyrt. analis, both species being very different from all others of the same genus inhaving hairy eyes and the first species also owing to its very long third antennal joint.

In the summer of 1908 one of us (E. N. P.), whilst collecting material in the River Zeravshan in the vicinity of Samarkand (Turkestan), came across a case of adhesive peritonitis in a local fish, Schizothorax intermedius. The abdominal wall of this fish, with a part of the viscera adhering to it, were dissected out and placed in 70 per cent, alcohol where they remained untouched till 1919 when we proceeded to their examination. The results of our investigation are described in this paper. An examination of the excised parts shows a compact accumulation of tissue on the ventral side of the intestinal coils, in the form of a flat patch from which a series of fine strands run to the black peritoneal covering of the lower body-wall. The patch which shows irregular edges is coloured black and is covered with yellowish spots.

Parasitology, owing to its economic importance, has received very great attention during the last 50 years and several good text-books have been devoted to this subject. In almost all recently published books, however, stress has been laid chiefly upon the economic side of the problem: medical, veterinary, agricultural, etc., but the scope of Parasitology is by no means restricted to the problems economically connected with man. We know now that there is hardly any group in the animal or vegetable kingdom which does not harbour parasites. The latter themselves do not escape this rule and are often parasitised in their turn. Moreover, the interrelations between living organisms are not restricted to parasitism only; there are, in fact, all shades of transition between parasitism on the one hand, and commensalism and symbiosis on the other. These interrelations have never been adequately dealt with in text-books of biology or parasitology and all the information concerning them is scattered in a great number of papers dealing with various biological or parasitological problems. This gap has been recently filled by a small volume issued by Prof. M. Caullery [of the “Laboratoire d'Evolution des Êtres Organisés de la Sorbonne, Paris” under the title Le Parasitisme et la Symbiose in which the author has incorporated a series of lectures delivered by him on this subject during the academic year 1919–1920. The book deals with the most interesting cases of commensalism, parasitism, and symbiosis and with various important cases of transition between these three great ethological groups.

It has hitherto been firmly established from experience gained in the studfarms and by experimental investigations (Hertwig, Prince and Lafosse, Frasbot, Pench) that Dourine is transmitted almost exclusively through coitus. Flies take no part in the transmission of the disease (Laveran and Mesnil), however, the possibility of infection through the bite of fleas (Eabino-witsch and Kempner) or ticks, is not excluded, and was proved experimentally (Sieber and Gonder). Experiments conducted on rabbits and dogs (Rouget, Schneider and Buffard, Laveran and Mesnil) have shown that T. equiperdum is capable of penetrating through the intact mucous membrane of the eye and genital organs, but not through the alimentary tract. Manteuffel's experiments have shown that T. equiperdum can even penetrate through the intact skin.

When collecting small living animals, particularly insects or other small Arthropods, for dissection, or search for parasites, etc., one encounters difficulties in choosing a suitable and convenient arrangement in which the animals may be kept without injuries until they are brought home. The usual entomological corked glass tubes and wide-mouthed jars with a gauze cover are not practicable when a large number must be carried; their bulk hinders free movement, and their fragility renders it necessary to pack them carefully in a box or other suitable containers.

In April of this year (1922) a specimen was sent to the Agricultural Department, Armstrong College, by Mr S. Giles of South Shields, along with a note explaining that it had been found “down in the first spit of the soil” in one of a group of allotments there. It was obviously a specimen of a leech, but the specimen was submitted later, to Mr John Ritchie, the Museum, Perth, who kindly identified the species as Trocheta subviridis, and who mentioned that “this gives so far as I am aware, a more northern habitat than hitherto recorded. See Parasitology, vol. III, p. 182.”

In the course of a study of a method for the recovery of Uncinaria larvae from the soil, one of the employees of the laboratory became infected under circumstances closely simulating experimental conditions.

In former times when this country was dependent upon bees for its supply of sugar, a heavy mortality among these insects was of sufficient importance to be placed on record. In his Animal Plagues Fleming (1871) gives a number of references to such losses. In Ireland there was a “mortality of bees” in 950 A.D. and again in 992 A.D. there was a “great mortality upon men, cattle and bees.” In 1035 A.D. the destruction of bees afflicted the whole of Bavaria. An eclipse of the sun in 1124 A.D. was followed by a great pestilence amongst oxen, sheep, pigs, and bees. During the time of the “Black Death,” also, there appears to have been heavy losses of bees and at the Manor Court of Heacham in Norfolk, a statement was made on oath by the steward in the forty-fifth year of the reign of Edward III (1372 A.D.) to the effect that ten out of eleven stocks of bees had perished from the murrain. There is little doubt that this entry in the manorial court rolls refers to epidemic disease, but, as Fleming points out, “there is evidently no relationship between the morinâ of the bees and that of the sheep and cows.”

The phenomenon of tumours in the backs of cattle from which in due time grubs emerge has been known from very early times. So, also, has the phenomenon of “gadding,” now known to be due to Warble flies, and it is sufficient to cite the familiar and most graphic account given by Virgil. Since, however, the origin of the grubs in the tumours was entirely unknown and the “gadding” was usually attributed to members of the Tabanidae, allusions to these phenomena earlier than the 18th century have no value except as indicating the antiquity of the pests.

Students of the history of Protozoology are generally agreed that the earliest recorded observations on the Coccidia are those of Hake (1839). Bütschli (1882, p. 490) mentions his work, though he did not see it; and it has been cited by Leuckart (1879), Labbé (1896), and several other writers on the Sporozoa—including myself (1919)—as the first publication in which coccidia are recognizably described.

Numerous males and females collected from a Blue Duiker (Cephalophus (Guebei) monticola) at Ngome Forest, Mt Ngwibi, Natal, by Mr J. Tustin.

On Jan. 27th, 1920, among a number of nearly fully grown larvae of Bibiomarci which had been kept in the laboratory about two weeks, a few individuals were observed to be unhealthy or dead. These latter were found to contain parasitic Dipterous larvae, which eventually proved to be those of Hypocera incrassata Mg. Certain of these larvae were observed to be leaving the bodies of other larvae of Bibio marci at the same time.

Melittobia is a chalcid, ectoparasitic upon a number of species of Hymenoptera and upon the pupae of certain flies. The insect was bred in the laboratory and the life-history is described in detail.

A number of experiments were made with regard to possible hosts and as to feeding and reproduction and certain points are of some interest.

For instance, the male apparently does not feed but the female uses her ovipositor with which she punctures the eggs, larvae or pupae of various insects, afterwards sucking the blood which oozes from the puncture. Such eggs, larvae or pupae, in spite of repeated punctures, may continue to develop.

Before beginning oviposition upon the surface of a suitable host, the female punctures the host one or more times with her ovipositor and apparently injects an anaesthetizing fluid, since insect larvae and pupae, upon which eggs have been laid, very rarely develop farther and yet remain fresh for a considerable time extending to many months.

With regard to reproduction, inbreeding appears to be normal, mating usually taking place between two individuals of the same brood and later between the female and one of her own offspring. Virgin females, unable to find a male, lay a few eggs, which always produce males, the first of which to emerge mates with the female.

The female is very prolific and may lay as many as twelve hundred eggs in two or three batches, mating taking place before each batch is laid. The last eggs of a batch are almost invariably male eggs, indicating that the female has exhausted her supply of spermatozoa.

A virgin female, whose eggs are removed so that she cannot rear a mate, may lay as many as ninety eggs during her life-time, her length of life being more than doubled, and such a female will survive through the winter, even withstanding frost, whereas fertilized females apparently all die in October or November at the latest.

All the eggs of a virgin female are apparently capable of developing and all such eggs produce males.

Three species of two-clawed Mallophaga have heretofore been recorded from South American mammals. Concerning one of these species, Menopon extraneum Piaget, nothing is known aside from the information included in the original description and, judging from this and the accompanying figure, it appears not to differ from the usual type of bird-infesting members of this group. The other two species have each been made the type of a genus and these two genera have been considered by Harrison as representing a well-marked family, the Trimenoponidae.

The parasite herein described was found in the intestinal contents of Blatta americana at Calcutta. A single specimen was observed.

LA litérature ne nous offre que des renseignements fort embrouillés sur les Acanthocéphales parasites intestinaux de l'eider (Somateria mollissima L.).Ces parasites furent decouverts par Phipps en 1774–1775 et décrits par lui sous le nom de Sipunculus lendix. Cependant, de la description et surtout des figures de cet auteur on voit bien qu'il ne s'agissait point de Sipunculides mais de vrais Acanthocéphales (Lühe, 1905). Plus tard, d'autres auteurs ont rapporté cette espéce comme synonyme d'Echinorhynchus polymorphus Brems

Until the appearance of Neumann's paper “ Sur l'Ascaride des Bêtes Bovines ” (1883), Ascaris vitulorum was not generally accepted as a valid species, the form from cattle being referred by different authorities either to Ascaris lumbricoides or A. megalocephala. Neumann's study of this worm showed, however, that the species differs in many important anatomical characters from the common Ascarids of the pig and the horse and since the publication of his memoir the specific identity of A. vitulorum has not been disputed.