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Show 1894.] ON SOME NEMATODE PARASITES. 531 6. Notes on Nematode Parasites from the Animals in the Zoological Gardens, London. By A R T H U R E. SHIPLEY,, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of Christ's College, Cambridge. [Eeceived June 8, 1894.] (Plate XXXV.) The materials for the following notes on internal parasites found during the post-mortem examination of various animals which died in the Gardens of this Society were forwarded to me by my friend Mr. F. E. Beddard during the autumn of 1893. The collection included examples of five species of Nematodes and of one specimen of Pentastoma. I was unable to identify one small species of Nematode, of which there was but one specimen, taken from the walls of the lower intestine of a Canis virginianus. The other Nematodes belonged to the following four species:- 1. DICHEILONEMA BISPINOSUM, Diesing. There was but one specimen of this species, and this was rather shrivelled and distorted. It was a male, 28 cm. in length, about 3 to 4 mm. in breadth in the middle of the body, and tapering gradually at either end. The specimen was taken from the tissue surrounding the intestine of a Boa constrictor; according to Diesing it is found under the skin as well as in the abdominal cavity of this snake, and also amongst the coats of the intestine in Ophis saurocephalus, and in the membranes surrounding the lungs and oesophagus of Thamnobius pcecilostoma in Brazil. This species was first called Filaria boce-constrictoris by Leidy in the ' Proc. of the Acad, of Philadelphia,' vol. v. Diesing in his ' Systerna Helminthum,' 1851, refers to it under the name Filaria bispinosa, a name accepted by Leidy in the ' Proc. of the Acad, of Philadelphia,' 1856, p. 56; but in his " Revision der Nemotoden," in the ' Sitzungsberichte der k. Akad. in Wien,' Bd. xiii. 1861, Diesing mentions it under the name quoted above, Dicheilonema bispinosum. 2. PHYSALOPTERA TURGIDA, Rud. Numerous specimens of this species were taken from the stomach and intestine of Azara's Opossum, Didelphys azarce. The species is described by Dujardin in his ' Histoire Naturelle des Helminthes,' 1845, p. 92, under the name Spiroptera turgida, and by Schneider in his ' Monographie der Nematoden,' 1866, p. 62. It has also been found in Didelphys cancrivora and D. nudicaudata and virginiana. |