Mr. H. A. Baylis on Dicroccelium lanceatum. Ill Furrow-spinelets 6 ; actinal interme-diate spiuelets usually 3 (2 to 4) ; prominent abactinal plates numerous (more than 30 and as many as 50 to each fifth of body) and with not more than 15 spineleta to a plate, frequently 10 or less Asterina coronata cris-tata (Fisher) *. (Caroline Islands.) EXPLANATION OF PLATE XIII. Type of Asterina coronata cristata (Fisher). VI. — Is Dicroccelium lanceatum a Parasite of the Cat? A Note on a new Variety. , By H. A. BAYLIS, B.A. (Published by permission of the Trustees of the British Museuin.) [Plate XIV.] REFERENCES have occasionally been made in helminthological literature f to the occurrence of " Distomum lanceolatum " % in the cat. These cases have, however, in recent years been generally discredited, and it has been suspected that the parasites recorded belonged to one or other of the species of Opistltorchisox Clonorchis ( O./elineus and C. sinensis) known to occur in cats, these forms being more or less similar to Dicroccelium lanceatum in size and superficial appearance, though differing widely from it in their internal structure. The typical D. lanceatum is a well-known parasite of sheep and cattle, and of various other herbivorous mammals; it is also an occasional, and probably accidental, parasite of man, having been met with some six times. Its occurrence in a carnivore, however, is a point with regard to which some scepticism is not unnatural. When, therefore, I received some time ago some Trematodes taken from the liver of a cat, I was greatly interested to find that they belonged un-doubtedly to the genus Dicroccelium, and differed from the typical D. lanceatum only in certain very small anatomical * This form is probably distributed over western Oceania. It seems to be readily separable from the Japanese form, which has been classed as true coronata, although it probably is not. f See, e.g., Leuckart, 'Die Parasiten des Menschen,' I., Abth. 2, p. 360; von Linstow, ' Compendium der Helminthologie,' p. 30. \. Synonymy: Fasciola lavceolata Rudolphi, 1803; Distomum lan-ceolatum Mehlis, 1825; Dicroccelium lanceolatum Duiardin, 1845; Dicroccelium lanceatum Stiles & Ilassall, 1897.
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