1. A fungus disease of epidemic proportions was found in the common sea herring (Clupea harengus) throughout the Gulf of Maine.

2. The fungus was also found to infect the common winter flounder (Pseudopleuronectes americanus) and the alewife (Pomobolus pseudoharengus).

3. The causative agent was found to be a species of fungus belonging to the genus Ichthyosporidium Caullery and Mesnil (1905). The specific name is tentatively accepted as hoferi Plehn and Muslow (1911).

4. The organism is believed to be a normal parasite to the herring and reaches epidemic proportions only when certain unknown factors are operative.

5. The causative organism was found in herring preserved in 1926, and it is believed that the epidemic has been increasing in severity since that time.

6. It is believed that such an epidermic, once initiated, increases in severity, reaches a peak, and subsides to a subpatent level. The peak is believed to have been reached in 1931.

7. The life history and effects of the organism in the herring and flounder are described.

8. The herring is believed to acquire the infection by the ingestion of parasites liberated from fish in the same school.

9. The flounder is believed to acquire the infection by the consumption of infected herring.

10. The alewife is beleived to acquire the infection by ingestion of the parasite during its infrequent association with the herring.

11. Infection is believed to be established by way of the alimentary canal and, once established, to spread throughout the host by way of the blood stream or the lymphatics.

12. Direct cross infection from the herring to the flounder establishes the theory that the parasites in these two hosts are one and the same organism.

13. Direct cross infection experiments from the herring to the flounder eliminate the necessity of an intermediate host.

14. There is no reason to believe that this parasite is capable of infecting warm-blooded animals.

1. Embadomonas intestinalis has been cultivated on an inspissated horse-serum slope covered with Ringer egg-white or with inactivated horse-serum diluted 1:10 in 0·5 NaCl solution, at 17–20° C. as well as at 37° C.

2. Attempts to infect tadpoles of Bufo vulgaris, bred free from Protozoa, with E. intestinalis have failed.

3. In the division of E. intestinalis there is duplication of the basal granules and flagella with the formation of a centrodesmose between one granule of each pair. The cytostome disappears and new ones are formed when nuclear division is complete. No spindle fibres are formed but the nucleus becomes spindle-shaped and discrete chromatin granules are present.

4. Double individuals occur but they do not represent a stage in normal division. Long observation failed to reveal division of such individuals.

5. Cysts of E. intestinalis have been found in cultures at all temperatures studied. The nuclear membrane and peripheral chromatin is elongated and stains intensely, and the two basal granules are prominent. A siderophilic mass in the centre probably represents the karyosome. There is no evidence that division occurs in the cyst.

1. Cysts of Trichomonas batrachorum have never been found in repeated examinations of faeces nor of cultures made from them from Bufo vulgaris and Rana temporaria.

2. In dilutions of cultures in rain water with large surfaces exposed to the air Trichomonas batrachorum dies in forty-eight hours; but in long columns of water and absence of oxygen they live, in some cases, for months.

3. T. batrachorum will not live at 37° C., and T. hominis, though it lives at room temperature, will not multiply.

4. Tadpoles of Rana temporaria and Bufo vulgaris and larvae of Salamandra maculosa have been reared free from Protozoa.

5. Tadpoles of all three species of Amphibia have been infected with Trichomonas by feeding them on cultures free from cysts.

6. Tadpoles of Rana temporaria can be infected with Trichomonas batrachorum isolated from Bufo vulgaris, and tadpoles of B. vulgaris with Trichomonas from Rana temporaria. It is concluded therefore that Trichomonas batrachorum in frogs and toads is one true species.

7. Trichomonas sp. isolated from Lacerta viridis will not infect tadpoles of Bufo vulgaris and Rana temporaria.

8. Cultures of Trichomonas batrachorum from Bufo vulgaris will infect larvae of Salamandra maculosa though this species of Trichomonas has not been described from this amphibian.

Many species of cephaline Gregarines have been previously described from hosts belonging to widely different orders of Crustacea. These parasites are referred to the families Cephaloidophoridae Kamm, Gregarinidae Labbé, Porosporidae Léger, and Didymophyidae Léger. Kamm (1922) gave a list of these parasites, instituted the new family Cephaloidophoridae, and gave a description of all the species, except those referrable to Porosporidae, as till that time it was generally believed that Porosporidae were Schizogregarines. She fully discussed the grounds for placing the genus Cephaloidophora Mawrodiadi in a family by itself, and transferred to this genus several species previously described under Gregarina or Frenzelina.

A flagellate from Polietes lardaria, closely allied to Herpetomonas muscarum, has been repeatedly isolated in bacteria-free culture by the use of quinanil after numerous attempts to isolate it by other methods with one exception had failed. The flagellates were exposed to 1/10,000 or 1/100,000 quinanil for 2–4 or more hours and cultivated in Locke serum agar, the medium for the first subculture containing quinanil in concentrations of 1/10,000 or 1/50,000. The proofs of the purity of the cultures were exhaustive.

We are greatly indebted to Dr St John-Brooks and the National Collection of Type Cultures for certain of the flagellates isolated by Noguchi and Tilden. One of us (F. C. H.) has also been in receipt of grants from the Medical Research Council, and he would like to take this opportunity of expressing his thanks to that body.

Nuttall and Warburton (1911, pp. 105–13) give a detailed account of the systematic survey of the family Ixodidae and recognise nine genera in the family. They consider Aponomma Neumann as a subgenus of Amblyomma Koch, but I consider it a valid genus.

1. Anagrus atomus (L.) Hal. is a mymarid parasite of the eggs of Erythro-neura pallidifrons Edwards.

2. The parasite is parthenogenetic, at any rate for the greater part of the year.

3. Two larval stages are described.

4. More than one egg may be laid in a single host egg and these eggs may hatch, but only one of the Anagrus larvae reaches maturity.

5. The development of Anagrus atomus takes about sixteen days.

6. The species is multi-voltine.

The Genus Nycteribosca was established by Speiser in 1900 for the species which were formerly placed in the genus Raymondia, Strebla or Brachystarsina. This author described one new species and redescribed four others which were already known. Quite recently the number of the species of this genus has been increased to nine by Falcoz. In this paper I have added seven new species, and also give a redescription and figures of all the known species. I have not included N. diversa Frauenfeld in my key, but at the end of this paper there is a description of this fly based on that of Frauenfeld (1856), and a copy of his drawing of the wing. The drawing shows very clearly the branch of the second longitudinal vein. N. diversa appears to be a very doubtful species; it has never been recorded since its original description was written. Moreover, according to Kessel (1925), there is no branching of the second longitudinal vein (R 2+3.) in the family Streblidae.

Three specimens were examined, the type, female, and two paratypes, male, collected by Mr B. A. Lever, from a small bat in the Russell Islands, Solomon Islands. They were sent to me by Sir Guy A. K. Marshall, whom I wish to thank for allowing me to describe them.

In 1931 a number of fleas was received from Mr Georg Stein, obtained in Dutch New Guinea. Among them were the three species described below. We are greatly indebted to Mr Stein for having made this collection.

A preliminary survey of parasites from Apodemus hebridensis, Mus musculus and Epimys norvegicus on the Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, is described; also the fauna of House Mouse nests. Special discussion is given of the flea fauna, and it is shown that there is much overlapping in host relations. The original flea fauna of Apodemus on the outer islands of the British Isles is indicated.

The following is supplementary to the previous lists (Leigh-Sharpe, 1926 and 1933), and consists of records of parasitic Copepoda taken by workers in that group who have visited the Laboratory of the Marine Biological Association, Plymouth, during 1933.

No Worker on British Turbellaria having hitherto given any attention to parasitic species, I devoted the greater part of my visit to the Laboratory of the Marine Biological Association, Plymouth, Aug.–Sept. 1933, to the collection and investigation of these forms. The number discovered is small in proportion to the number of hosts examined. All but the last have been identified from von Graaf (1913), and all but the first and last are new to the British fauna.

While studying a collection of roundworm parasites from animals dying in the Philadelphia Zoological Garden, accounts of which appeared in 1929 and 1931, I found ten flukes in it, one of which proved to be new. Two common distomes in the lot, Renifer ellipticus Pratt 1903 and Opisthorchis tenuicollis (Rud. 1819) are from new hosts; the former from an American beaver (Castor canadensis) and the latter from a Canadian lynx (Felis canadensis). The one rare monostome found in the lot is recognised as a new species of the genus Allopyge Johnston 1913 in the family Cyclocoelidae and is named Allopyge undulatus n.sp. It was found in the thoracic air sacs of Lilford's crane (Megalornis grus lilfordi).

1. Coitocaecum anaspidis sp.nov. is a Trematode which exhibits precocious genital activity whilst encysted as a metacercaria in the Tasmanian Mountain Shrimp, Anaspides tasmaniae Thomson.

2. Eggs are laid by the Trematode whilst in the encysted condition, and in some cases the eggs hatch in the cyst giving rise to miracidia which swim freely in the contained fluids.

3. Two hundred specimens of Anaspides tasmaniae were examined and one hundred and twenty-seven found to contain the encysted Trematode.

4. A systematic description of the Trematode is given.

In this paper short descriptions are given of three new species (two Cestodes and a Nematode) contained in a collection kindly entrusted to the writer by Prof. G. H. F. Nuttall, F.R.S., for determination. The material was collected in Queensland by Mr F. H. S. Roberts, and forwarded to Prof. Nuttall by Mr Robert Veitch, Chief Entomologist, Department of Agriculture and Stock, Brisbane.

The genus Petasiger which belongs to the family Echinostomidae was proposed by Dietz in 1909, with Petasiger exaeretus as the type species. The description given by Dietz of this species is incomplete and it is proposed therefore to present below a more detailed account of the anatomy, based on an examination of whole mounts and serial sections. The material was obtained from the small intestine of cormorants shot on the coast of Cardigan Bay between Aberystwyth and Llanrhystyd. Five cormorants were shot in July, and of these two contained a large number of Petasiger exaeretus in the small intestine.

Nematodes of the superfamily Rhabditoidea are usually free-living; however, a few species appear to be definitely parasitic. The Nematode described in this paper belongs to the latter group. It was found in large numbers in the small intestine of one of two bats, Lasiurus borealis, captured September 15th, 1932, in the vicinity of Washington, D.C. Additional specimens of this species of bat were not obtained for examination. Two specimens of each of two other species of bats, Eptesicus fuscus and Nycticeius humeralis, collected from the same locality were negative for this parasite. The Nematode is a member of the family Cylindrogasteridae Chitwood 1933, and appears to be congeneric with Longibucca vivipara Chitwood 1933, found in the wall of the stomach of a South American snake, Pseudoboa cloelia.

“Piranabú,” “Piranampú” or “Piranampú” (the last according to Goeldi, 1898) are local names on the Amazon applied to the siluroid fish which, so far as it is possible to determine from memory and from the rough sketches and notes which I made at the time, is the modern Pirinampus pirinampus (Spix). This fish, of which I examined eight examples, attains a length of at least 60 cm., has an elongated adipose fin more than one-third the length of the entire body, microscopic scales, possesses maxillary barbels about half the length of the body, and in general appearance closely resembles the figure (Tab. VIII, a) of “Pimelodus ctenodus” provided by Spix (1829). I am much indebted to Mr J. R. Norman, of the British Museum, for his kind assistance in identification.

Turning sickness of cattle, a very fatal disease, long known in tropical East Africa, is characterised by circling or turning movements made by the affected animals. Recent observations prove that the malady occurs sporadically throughout Uganda and in the greater part of Kenya and Tanganyika where East Coast Fever is highly enzootic. It appears to occur mostly in hot dry periods of the year.