(1) Of 482 starlings examined during the period November 1925 to February 1926, 169 were infested with the Gapeworm (S. trachealis): the percentage of infected birds being 35 per cent. This confirms the previous observations when the writer found 14 infected birds out of 38.

(2) There is a suggestion of a gradual increase, towards March, in the percentage of starlings infected.

(3) The average length of the gapeworm in starlings is much the same as the average length of the gapeworm of chickens.

(4) Welsh names for gapes are given.

(5) Gapes among chickens occurs in Cardiganshire, Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire from March to August; in young turkeys in May and June; and in adult turkeys and pheasants throughout the year.

(6) Starlings, turkeys and pheasants act as a bridging, between November to March when few or no young chickens occur for the propagation and distribution of the gapeworm.

(7) Cases are instanced of (a) a sudden outbreak of gapes among chickens kept in an area where no turkeys have been kept, (b) heavy losses among pheasants on an estate which starlings had previously frequented in very large flocks.

(8) Owing to the higher percentage of infection and its wider migrations, the starling is here considered as a more effective distributor of the disease than turkeys. Other wild birds, such as pheasants, thrushes, rooks and jays, also play a part in spreading the gapeworm and the disease this worm causes.

Worms belonging to the genus Ascaris occur occasionally in the small intestine of sheep and lambs and have been reported both in Europe and America. They have been considered by some to belong to a distinct species, namely Ascaris ovis Rudolphi, and by others to be identical with Ascaris lumbricoides Linnaeus. The question of their specific identity is an interesting one and could not be considered as definitely settled one way or the other and though possibly the majority of helmin-thologists would subscribe to the view that the species is A. lumbricoides (vide Ransom 1911, p.25, and Ransom and Foster 1920, p. 30), others hold a different view; in fact Neuveu-Lemaire (1923) has recently published a paper in which he describes a single specimen of Ascaris from a goat as Ascaris ovis.

1. The possibility of correlating the acidity of the soil with the distribution of cysts of Heterodera schachtii is investigated by a colorimetric method of hydrogen ion determination. The variety of this eelworm which infests potatoes is alone considered, the material being derived from South Lincolnshire—in particular from Kirton and the district around Boston. The samples, general notes and cyst-concentration data are due to Morgan, to whom the writer is greatly indebted.

2. A brief account of the life-history of H. schachtii is given, and also:

3. A note on the theoretical aspect of hydrogen ions and of the colorimetric methods for determining their concentrations.

4. The technique involved is fully discussed, and after various tests is standardized as follows : 2 grams of dry, finely-sieved soil are shaken up with 10 c.c. of twice-distilled water for ¼ hour. The mixture is centrifuged for 5 minutes and diluted with water in the ratio 1:9. A suitable indicator is added, aeration of the solution follows, and the pH-value is read by comparison with indicator-standards in a Walpole Comparator.

It is pointed out that at most the results give the pH-value of the solutions. The pH-value of the soil itself, in situ, is not determined, so that the results are only of relational value.

The Bordet-Gengou test applied to the diagnosis of cases of suspected hydatid infection has been used by many workers since first introduced by Ghedini in 1906, using as antigen hydatid fluid from human cysts.

During investigations on the Eelworm of Potatoes in south Lincolnshire during the summer of 1925 it was found that fields shewing great variation in the extent of damage done to the crop did not have a corresponding variation in the number of eelworm cysts present. It was often observed that patches where plants were doing well shewed as many cysts in the soil and on the roots as those areas where damage was most pronounced. This seemed to suggest that eelworms might not be the primary cause of the failure but a contributory factor.

Owing to the fact that other pests, chiefly fungoid, were invariably present in addition to eelworm it seemed that one might either attribute the failure of the crop to various pests, or to some factor or factors connected with soil fertility which inhibited the proper growth of the plants and reduced their resistance to disease. In order to obtain data which might throw some light on this latter suggestion, a number of fields reported to have failing potato crops were visited and as far as possible the history of the cropping, manuring and general cultivation was obtained. Soil samples from different parts of the fields were brought back to the Laboratory at the Kirton Agricultural Institute for the estimation of the cyst content.

In investigating the occurrence of helminthic parasites of wild birds it must be borne in mind that birds are migratory animals so that their parasites may be carried over a wide area. Also it is known that the intermediate hosts of bird helminths are in many cases very widely distributed and that in other cases species nearly related may act as alternative intermediate hosts.

In February, 1924, Dr. Walton recorded Anoplocephala perfoliata, Ascaris equi, Oxyuris equi (curvula), and Cylicostomum tetracanthum from horses in North Wales; and in January 1925, Mr. Bissett, M.R.C.V.S., found, in a horse from Duffryn Mountains (South Wales), a large number of parasitic worms, including Anoplocephala mammillana, Cylicostomum tetracanthum, Strongylus edentatus, S. vulgaris, S. equinus, and one specimen of Oxyuris. These, it seems, are the only recent records concerning helminthic parasites of horses in Wales. It was therefore thought desirable to examine a few horses very carefully.

The Cairo City Police is a force consisting of more than 5,300 men. They are recruited principally from the Egyptian Army Reserve or by direct conscription. They are mostly derived from the poorest classes of the agricultural population and the artisans of the towns. Any individual can be exempted from enlistment in the Army on paying £E.20, and it is only those who cannot afford to pay that sum that are enlisted if medically fit.

Tænia echinococcus has always been recognised as one of the most important tapeworms of carnivores, both from the human and the economic point of view. Its intermediate stage, or Hydatid, assumes many forms, but most modern workers believe that all these forms—with one possible exception, the alveolar form from Central Europe—are merely the manifestations of a single species.

Earlier in this volume (pp. 27–30), the writer has given an account of an eelworm obtained from a diseased potato tuber, possessing a mouth stylet with six basal swellings, an œsophagus without a muscular bulb such as occurs in Tylenchus and Aphelenchus, a vulva much more posterior in position than in the two genera just mentioned and a uterus without a post-vulvar diverticulum. On these characters the worms were placed in a new genus, Hexatylus.

In 1865, Leuckart described from the stomach of the domestic cat, a minute bursate worm which he named Ollulanus tricuspis. His original description was somewhat scanty, but it was amplified in later years (1867–1876). As this work is scattered throughout many pages, the following is a brief resumé of Leuckart's theory.

He was struck by the fact, that being viviparous in habit, it resembled Trichinella spiralis, but recognised that several fundamental differences existed between them. Ollulanus never produced more than three larvae at a time from relatively large eggs, about 60μ to 120μ long; whereas Trichinella produced numerous larvae with small eggs about 35μ long. He found what he believed were the free larvae of Ollulanus, which measured about 320μ long by 15μ wide, had a truncated oral extremity and a short tail which ended in a short S-shaped tip (Fig. 1, a). The oesophagus was between one third and one half of the total length of the intestine; several transparent vesicles could be seen at its clubshaped posterior extremity. Although there are seldom more than three embryos inside the female, larvae were usually, found in large numbers throughout the whole intestinal tract of the host, as well as encysted (in cysts ·15 to ·2 mm. in diameter) on various internal organs. The cyst wall had a connective tissue-like structure of such thickness that it might be three or four times the diameter of the enclosed space.

During the winter of 1921–22 I visited the slaughterhouse at Aberystwyth at least once each week for the purpose of studying the helminthic parasites of sheep and pigs in the neighbourhood. An average of 50 sheep and 8 pigs were examined weekly from November 26th, 1921, to April 28th, 1922. Metastrongylus elongatus and M. brevivaginatus were present in the bronchioles of 50 per cent. of the pigs examined, generally both species being present in the same animal, and I took the opportunity of working out the anatomy of these two forms in detail, and indicating the differences between them; but before being able to publish my results Gedoelst covered the ground in his “Le Genre Metastrongylus Molin, 1861,” published in 1923.

Adult gravid females were collected from the large intestine of sheep, carefully washed and teased up in water. The grosser material was strained off and the eggs, together with the smaller particles, were cultured in excavated glass cells at 27° C.

This parasite was first reported by Cobbold in 1882 from a donkey and described by him two years later under the name of Strongylus arnfieldi. Previously, worms from the lungs of equines had been reported by Diesing and by Gurlt, but these had been confused with the species found in bovines. This species was later identified in the horse by Railliet. It was placed in its present genus by Railliet and Henry in 1907.

Recently (1924) Chandler has described from the duodenum of a Bennett's Wallaby (Macropus bennetti), a new genus of Trichostrongylidæ. Shortly after the publication of this paper, the writer was privileged to study what appears to be a second new species from the same host. The parasites are very small forms and occur mainly in the stomach, but are also found occasionally in the first part of the small intestine. A few specimens of Chandler's species were also present.

During the winter of 1925–1926 the writer had the opportunity of staying on a farm in the Northern districts of Natal, South Africa. This farm—about 1,000 acres in extent and situated some 4,000 feet above sea level—is used primarily for sheep grazing, although cattle, horses and goats also form part of the farm stock. Half of the farm consists of a mountain rising to just above 5,000 feet above sea level, and the rest of the farm consists of an undulating plain. Except for a few depressions towards the foot of the mountain, which, during the rainy season become somewhat swampy, the whole farm may be considered as being very well drained. In consequence it is entirely covered with grass, there being no evidence of bush formation. Three rivulets, giving an abundant water supply, take their origin from the mountain.

Rudolphi (1819) first described a nematode from the intestine of Iguana tuberculata under the title, Ascaris megatyphlon. Since then considerable progress has been made in our knowledge of the parasitic Nematodes and most of the forms described by Rudolphi under Ascaris have been placed in new genera. Dujardin (1845) re-examined these forms and created a new genus, Ozolaimus, for Ascaris megatyphlon and removed certain other forms to the genus Oxyuris. He differentiated the two genera of Oxyuris and Ozolaimus by the presence of two simple lips in Ozolaimus and three simple or lobed lips in Oxyuris.

In an earlier paper (Goodey, 1924), the writer has given an account of the morphology of the adults of Œsophagostomum dentatum, the development and structure of the free-living larvæ and the biology of the ensheathed infective stage. So far, however, the parasitic larval stages have not been described. In the present paper some of the gaps in our knowledge of the complete life-history of the worm represented by these stages are filled in, not as completely as could be desired owing to the absence from the material of specimens showing the 3rd and 4th ecdyses. The worms found, however, show that the 4th stage larva has a provisional buccal capsule essentially similar to that found in 4th stage larvæ of O. radiatum (Marotel, 1908) and O. columbianum (Veglia, 1924), and in this respect is in line with certain other 4th stage larvæ of the Strongyloidea such as Ancylosloma duodenale (Looss, 1897), and Triodontophorus tenuicollis (Ortlepp, 1925), in which provisional buccal capsules built on the same general plan have been observed.

Out of a large number of diseased potatoes sent by a merchant to this Institute and to the Ministry of Agriculture Pathological Laboratory, Harpenden, suspected of eelworm disease due to Tylenchus dipsaci, only one tuber was found by Mr. Buckhurst of the latter laboratory to contain eelworms; all the others, although presenting a naked-eye appearance extremely like that shown by tubers attacked by T. dipsaci, were entirely negative. This tuber was sent to the writer for his opinion on the nema-todes living in it with the result that what appears to be a new genus has been found. It resembles members of the genera Tylenchus and Aphelenchus in that it has a mouth stylet with swellings at its base and might at first sight be mistaken for a representative of one of these genera, a fact which renders a description of it all the more necessary, but differs from them in several morphological details.