The family Gnathostomidae contains several genera and a fair number of species of nematodes of rather aberrant type and of uncertain affinities. As pointed out by Baylis and Lane (1920) in their excellent revision of the family, there is little doubt but that it should be included in the superfamily Spiruroidea. The subfamily Gnathostominae is characterised by the possession of a head bulb containing four closed membranous hollow structures, called ballonets by Baylis and Lane, connected posteriorly with four elongate sac-like structures designated cervical sacs. Three genera are recognised in this sub-family as follows: Tanqua, in which the head bulb is provided with transverse cuticular ridges, and Echinocephalus and Gnathostoma in which the head bulb is provided with rows of thorn-like spines. In Echinocephalus the body is smooth and destitute of cuticular spines, whereas in Gnathostoma all or a large part of the body has rows of cuticular spines on the posterior edges of the annulations. The first two genera are parasitic in the intestinal tract of cold-blooded vertebrates, whereas Gnathostoma apparently has its normal habitat in the stomach wall of mammals, as Baylis and Lane have pointed out.

Habitat and Record. During November 1924, by the courtesy of Seizo Takeda, I received from the Yogyo Shikenjyo (Piscicultural Experiment Station) at Kitajima near Toyohashi, Japan, the head of a small Japanese eel, Anguilla japonica, whose buccal cavity appeared to be completely filled with about forty parasites belonging to the genus usually known as Lernaeocera, but to which Wilson (1917, p. 3) has given reasons for restoring the name Lernaea Linnaeus. (See Note, p. 251.)

The genus Apelma was erected by Kieffer (1919) for the inclusion of two European species, of which he had males only. The characters upon which he laid stress, and by which he separated the genus from Forcipomyia, were the length of the claws and the absence of an empodium. Nothing is known of the early stages of these two species. Subsequently, Ingram and Macfie (1923) described an African species from three males reared by Bacot from larvae in the leaf axils of Dracaena sp. The early stages of this species were not preserved.

Infection experiments with Sarcoptes of cattle conducted upon a horse, two sheep, two rabbits, two rats, a cat and a man gave negative results. Active stages of the mite kept damp in the refrigerator lived 11 days, at room-temperature they lived 7 days, at 37° C. they lived 3 days, these being maximum periods observed. Eggs kept 5 days and over in the refrigerator subsequently failed to hatch when warmed; when kept at room-temperature they lived 16 days and hatched on being warmed; at 37°C. they survived 7 days.

Infection experiments with Psoroptes of cattle conducted upon one heifer gave negative results.

Chorioptes of cattle kept at room-temperature and protected from light survived 29 days.

Owing to the courtesy of Docent W. Stefanski, University of Warsaw, I have had the opportunity of studying some Nematoda collected by him from the large intestine of an elephant which died hi the Warsaw Circus.

Adults of the family Simuliidae have been known in Europe for a very long time as very serious pests affecting both men and cattle, and there were many interesting legends, even up to the middle of the eighteenth century, explaining their origin from grottos in the mountains (Tömösváry). Fabricius (1784) for the first time found a Simulium pupa (probably that of S. venustum Say) and described it under the name Tipula sericea, but to Schönbauer (1795) we owe the discovery that the earlier stages (egg, larva and pupa) of Simulium (Kolumbatczer-Mücke) are to be found in running water.