1. The following strains produced no infection in any of the laboratorybred Glossina used in their examination; the total number of flies dissected is given for each strain:

T. gambiense, strain V, Uganda, isolated in 1926 … … … 548

T. gambiense, strain Adero, Uganda, isolated in Jan. 1933 … 1642

T. rhodesiense, Liverpool, isolated in Jan. 1933 …. … … 750

T. rhodesiense, Liverpool, arsenic-fast variant … … … … 1166

T. brucei, “Hamburg alt” from Berlin; isolated over 30 years ago 2452

Some of the flies used in testing each of these strains were kept at 95–97° F. during their infecting feeds.

2. T. gambiense, strain “Braun,” isolated in February, 1920, gave two “gut only” infections in 1137 flies. T. gambiense, strain “McA,” isolated in 1921, produced one very light infection, of the intestinal tract only, in 1410 flies employed. This infected fly died on the 27th day after its infecting feed.

T. brucei, strain “Hornby mild,” isolated at the end of 1930, gave three infections of the intestinal tract only in 1443 flies used. Some of the flies employed on these three strains were kept during their infecting feeds at 95–97° F., but the infected flies came from boxes kept at room temperature throughout.

It will be seen that all the strains hitherto summarised are, as far as these tests are concerned, non-transmissible by Glossina, and the majority are no longer capable of infecting even the intestine of the fly.

3. T. brucei, strain “Hornby virulent,” isolated in April, 1927, from a heifer, and found by Corson in 1931 to be readily transmissible by G. morsitans or G. pallidipes (or both), 4½ years after its first isolation (Corson, 1932). A month or so later this strain was found at Entebbe to be still feebly transmissible by G. palpalis and somewhat more readily by G. morsitans, although much less so than in Corson's experiments.

4. Strain “Br,” considered by Prof. J. G. Thomson to be a T. gambiense showing some resemblances to T. rhodesiense, when examined at Entebbe some three years after its isolation from a European in West Africa, proved to be still infective to both G. palpalis and G. morsitans through only very feebly transmissible. 4272 laboratory-bred flies were used in the examination of this strain: 74 of these developed infection of the intestine, and only one a gland infection—a G. palpalis dying on the 40th day after its infecting feed. Flagellates were numerous in the glands of this fly.

5. The behaviour of the “Hornby virulent” strain of T. brucei and of strain “Br” suggests that completion of the cycle in the fly may be delayed beyond the 25–30 days usually sufficient for East African strains, and it is possible that this delay may be a feature characteristic of strains whose transmissibility by tsetse is undergoing reduction. On the other hand, the solitary infective fly obtained with strain “Br” had a heavy gland infection which had in all probability been present at least for several days before the death of this insect.

6. A strain freshly isolated from a native who was infected on or near the northern shores of Lake Victoria failed to infect any of 1642 G. palpalis used in its examination, although a number of these flies were kept at 95–97° F. during their infecting feeds.

7. The results of the investigations described in this paper lend some support to the opinion already formed as the result of numerous experiments with the polymorphic group of trypanosomes, namely that T. brucei (and, as far as can be seen, T. rhodesiense) is less prone than T. gambiense to lose touch with Glossina.

It may be that the stability of this character in T. brucei is an expression of a more perfect adjustment to environment than is possessed by T. gambiense; the latter trypanosome, which is essentially dependent on man, having not yet attained biological equilibrium in this its principal mammalian host.

In 1904, Bezzenberger investigated ciliates from the rectum of several amphibian hosts of Asia and described two new species of Nyctotherus, N. macropharyngeus and N. magnus. Recently Dashi Nie (1932) described two more new species, N. nankingensis and N. pyriformis, with several opalinids from Rana limnocharis Gravenhorst of Nanking. It is the purpose of this paper to describe a new species of Nyctotherus from the Chinese frog, Rana spinosa.

Host and record. Several males and females were collected from the skin of a sailfish, Histiophorus gladius Day, caught off the south coast of Ceylon in December, 1931. Since then this form was found to occur commonly as an external parasite on the skin of many of the sailfish and swordfish found in Ceylon waters.

A detailed description of the musculature in the different regions of the alimentary canal of Calliphora erythrocephala is given, and an account of the structure and function of the crop, proventriculus, ducts of the Malpighian tubes, rectal valve and rectal papillae. It has been shown by dissections and experiments that a system of channels exists in the rectal papillae through which the body fluid probably circulates, and it is suggested that the very large cells may have functions resembling those of liver cells.

1. Observations indicate that the female uses the third pair of legs during deposition as an aid in forcing the larva through the vaginal orifice.

2. The young imago is able to free itself from the pupal case by dragging the case across a rough surface with the forelegs.

3. The act of copulation has been observed and described, including mounting, position and duration.

4. Evidence is presented to show that the insects are positively thermotropic and thigmotropic; negatively phototropic and hydrotropic.

5. The flies react positively to the odours of oil of cloves, camphor and ox gall; negatively to oil of wintergreen and amyl alcohol, and are indifferent to blood, fresh pigeon skin, pigeon scales, feathers, ammonia, oil of thyme, oil origanum, xylol and bergamot.

6. The length of life without food is found to be in direct proportion to the energy expended in motion, ranging from 77 to 109 hours.

7. The flies refuse to take unwarmed food.

8. The insect will not penetrate a perfectly smooth membrane, or one that is rancid.

9. According to data presented. Pseudolynchia maura will not live longer than 117 hours when artificially fed.

The genus Onchocotyle was named by Diesing in 1850 with O. appendiculatum (Kuhn 1829) as type. Cerfontaine (1900) reviewed the history of the group and revised the genus. He named the subfamily Onchocotylinae, containing three genera: Squalonchocotyle, Acanthonchocotyle (subsequently regarded by Monticelli (1903) as a synonym of Onchocotyle) and Rajonchocotyle. He discarded the older generic name of Onchocotyle, and placed the group in the group in the family Octocotylidae. Poche (1925) placed it in the family Polystomatidae Gamble (1896). Fuhrmann (1931) lists the group in the suborder Polyopisthocotylinea, family Onchocotylidae.

The Piraeeba, or Pirá-aïba (Piraïba) as Goeldi spells it, is a large Siluroid (my largest specimen measured 135 cm. in length) which is locally plentiful in the Amazon and has been described by Goeldi (1902). Goeldi named this species Piratinga pirá-aïba and it is the modern Brachyplatystoma filamentosum (Lichtenstein). I am indebted top Mr J. R. Norman of the British Museum (Natural History) for the modern name.

The material upon which this paper is based was secured in May, 1930, from a specimen of Scopus umbretta bannermani C. H. B. Grant (Ciconiiformes) which had been shot by a native on the Buzi River in Mozambique, about 40 miles from the eastern border of the Melsetter District of Southern Rhodesia. Several hours elapsed before the bird was brought into camp and its skin prepared for museum purposes, and our parasitological examination of the specimen was carried out under some difficulty with failing light. No worms were found in the alimentary tract, but on removing the liver and teasing this organ apart about twenty trematodes were recovered. To the naked eye these appeared very similar to schistosomes and, accepting this as a tentative diagnosis, we assumed that the parasites had been loosened from an abode in the branches of the hepatic portal vein. Considerably later, when we sought to identify the formalin-preserved specimens, it became evident that we had chanced upon an infection with a species of “holostome” closely related if not identical with that atypical and obscurely known form, Holostomum serpens.

During the last few decades, a considerable amount of experimental works has been carried out on the relations of insects to their environment: in certain groups such studies have advanced to an extent which renders possible tentative efforts at accurate prediction of their activities and spread. Among the arachnids, however, the experimental study of ecological relationships has been almost entirely neglected, and this despite the fact that several species, especially among the mites and ticks, are of marked economic significance. Since 1892–3, when the researches of Smith and Kilborne on piroplasmosis in cattle were published, ticks have been proved to be vectors of numerous important diseases of man and animals in many parts of the world, and much knowledge of their bionomics has been gained through observations conducted in the field and in the laboratory. The ecology of ticks under precisely controlled conditions, however, provides a practically unexplored field.

The case described in this note is believed to be unique, for no similar record has been found after search of the relevant literature. The subject of myiasis has been carefully reviewed and abstracted by Huber (1899), Umaña (1915) and Bedford (1927), and no cogent references of more recent date have been discovered.