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\
THE
PROCEEDhNGS
OF THK
LiNNEnn Society
OF
iNevv South Wales
FOR THE YEAR
1911
Vol. XXXVI.
WITH THIRTY-ONE PLATES
SYDNEY : PKINTKD AND PUBLISHED FOR THE .SOCIETY
BV
\V. A. PFiPPERDAY Sz CO, 119a PITT STREET
A.ND
SOLD BV THE SOCIETY
1912
001^0
W. A PEPPKKDAY AND CO ,
GENERAL PRINTERS, 119a PITT STREET, SYDNEY.
CONTENTS OF PROCEEDINGS, 1911.
PART I. (No. 141). (/.ssfted August ink, 1911).
PAGE
Presidential Address delivered at the Thirty-sixth Annual General Meeting, March 29th, 1911, including "A Study of Marginal Drainage" (p. 13), by C. Hedlky, F.L.S. (Plate ii.) 1-39
A new Smut [?7.s<^7agfo ewa?-<i] in a new Genus of Grass. By 1).
McAlpi.ne, Correspondini; Member. (Plate i.) ... .. 45-46
The Entozoa of Mouotremataand Australian Marsupialia. No. ii.
By T. Hakvey Johnston, M. A., D. So. (Plate iii.) ... 47-57
New Species of Avian Cestodes. By T. Harvey Johnston, M.A.,
D.Sc. (Plates iv.-vi.) 58-80
Studies in the Life-Histories of Australian Odonata. No. 4. Further Notes on the Life-Historj' of Petalura gigantea Leach. By R. J. TiLLYARD, M.A., F.E.S. (Plate vii.) 86-96
The Role of Nitrogen in Plant-Metabolism. Part iii. The Dis- tribution of Nitrogen in Acacia Seeds. By James M. Petrie, D.Sc, F.I.C., Liunean Macleay Fellow of the Society in Bio- Chemistry 97-126
The Role of Nitrogen in Plant-Metabolism. Part iv. The Nitrogen of Ripening Seeds. By James M. Petrie, D.Sc, F.l.C, Linnean Macleay Fellow of the Society in Bio Chemistry ... 127-134
The Role of Nitrogen in Plant- Metabolism. Part v. The Occur- rence of Potassium Nitrate in Plants. By James M. Petrie, D.Sc, F.I.C, Linnean Macleay Fellow of the Society in Bio- Chemistry 135-140
The A77iycteridiK of the "Voyage de I'AstroIabe, 1835." By
Eustace W. Ferguson, M.B., Ch.M 141-153
Description of a new Lac-Coccid (Genua Tachardia) from New South Wales. By Walter W. Froggatt, F.L.S. , Govern- ment Entomologist ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 154
The Bees of the Solomon Islands. By Professor T. D. A.
CocKERELL. (Commujiicated by W . W. Froggatt, F. L.S.) ... 160-178
Revision of Pterohdceus (continued) and of SaraguH; with Descrip- tions of new Species of Australian Tenebrioiiidoe. By H. J. Carter, B. A, F.E.S. (Plate viii.) 179-192
Hon. Treasurer's Financial Statement, Balance Sheet, &c. ... .. 39
Elections and Announcements ... ... ... .. ... 44, 81, 155
Notes and Exhibits 44, 82, 156
27794
iv. CONTENTS.
PART II. (No. 142). [Issued 20th Xovemher, 1911).
PAfiK
Revision of Pterohdceus (continued) and of Saragus ; with Des- criptions of new Species of Australian TenehrionidcB [^Gole- opfera] (continued). (Plate viii.) 193-223
Revision of Australian Tortricina. By E. Meyrick, B.A., F.R.S., Corresponding Member (continued from Vol. xxxv., pp. 139-294) 224-303
Contribution to our Knowledge of the Chemistry of Blood. No. 1, Globin Sulphate and Globin from Ox-Blood. By E. C. Grey, B.Sc, Acting Demonstrator and Assistant Lecturer in Physiology in the University of Sydney... ... 307-314
On the Affinities of Gmnohstes \_M arsupialia]. By R. Broom,
M.D., C.M.Z.S., Corresponding Member 315 320
Notes on some Mallophagan Generic Names. By T. Harvey
Johnston, M.A., D.Sc, and Launcelot Harrison ... 321-328
Notes on Variable DicEcism in Pittosporum undulatum Andr.
By Thos. Steel, F.L.S. (Plate ix.) 329-332
On a Collection of Parasitic Hymenoptera (chiefly bred) made by Mr. W. W. Frogoatt, F. L.S., in New South Wales, with Descriptions of New Genera and Species. Part i. By P. Cameron. {Communicated hy \V. W. Froggatt) ... 333-346
On Parasitic Hymenoptera from the Solomon Islands, collected by Mr. W. W. Froggatt, F.L.S. By P. Cameron. (Communicated by W. W. Froggatt.) 349-365
Further Notes on some lare Australian Gordidiino', with Des- criptions of new Species. By R. J. Tillyard, M.A., F.E.S. (Plate x.) 366-387
On the Genus GordiUephya [Neuroptera : Odonatd]. By R. J.
Tillyard, M.A., F.E.S. (Plates xi.-xii.) 388-422
Elections and Announcements 304, 347
Notes and Exhibits 304, 347
CONTENTS.
PART III. (No. 143).
{Issued Slh FebiiLCbry, 1912).
PAOK
Descriptions of new Species of Australian Goleoptera. Part ix.
By Arthur M. Lea, F.E.S. (Plate xvii.) 426-478
Tiie Hcematozoa of Australian Reptilia. No. ii. By T. Hakvey Johnston, M.A., D.Sc, and J. Bdrton Clkland, M.D., Ch.M. (Plates xiii.-xvi.) 479 491
Contributions to our Knowledge of Soil-Fertility, ii. The Deter- mination of Khizobia in the Soil. By R. Grkig- Smith, D.Sc, Macleay Bacteriologist to the Society ... ... ... 492-50-3
Notes on the Indigenous Plants in the Cobar District. By Arch- deacon F. E. Haviland .. 507-540
Notes on the Native Flora of New South Wales. Part viii. Camden to Burragorang and Mount Werong. By R. H. Cambage, F.L.S. (Plate xviii.) . 541-583
On the Genus Diphkhia [Nedroptera : Odonata] : with Descrip tionsof new Species, and Life-Histories. By R. J. Tillyard,
M.A., F.E.S. (Plates xix. -XX.) 584-604
Elections and Announcements ... ... ... ... ... 423, 504, 605
Notes and Exhibits 423,604,605
PART IV. (No. 144).
(Issued May 16th, 1912.)
Contributions to our Knowledge of Soil-Fertility, iii. Bacterial Slimes in Soil. By R. Greig-Smith, D.Sc, Macleay Bacte- riologist to the Society ... ... ... ... ... ... 609-612
The Fibro-vascular System of the Apple[Pome], and its Functions.
By D. McAlpine, Corresponding Member. (Plates xxi.-xxv.) 613-625
The Gases present in the Floats[Vesicles] of Certain Marine Algse.
By A. H. S. Lucas, M.A., B.Sc 626-631
On a Collection of Parasitic Hymenoptera (chiefly bred), made by Mr. W. W. Froggatt, F.L.S., in New South Wales, with Descriptions of new Genera and Species. Part ii. By 1'. Cameron. [iJommanicated by W. W. Frogyalt). ... ... 636-655
The Fibro-vascular System of the Pear [Pome]. By D. McAlpine,
Corresponding Member. (Plates xxvi.-xxix.) ... ... ... 656-663
A Revision of the Australian Species of the Genus Cerr.eris
iHymenoptera]. By Rowland E. Turner, F.Z.S., F.E.S. .. 664-678
VI.
CONTENTS.
FART IV. (contmuedj.
Contributions to our Knowledge of Soil-Fertility. iv.The Asjricere and Bacteriotoxins of Soil. By R. Greig-Smith, D.Sc, Macleay Bacteriologist to the Society
Note on a new Species of Favosites from Yass District, N.S. VA'. [ACTiNOZOA : Zoantharia]. By A, B. Walkom, B.Sc. , Demon- strator in (neology in the University of Sydney. (Plates xxx.-xxxi.)
Elections and Announcements ...
Notes and Exhibits
List of [)onations and Exchanges
Title-page ...
Contents
List of Plates
List of new Generic Names
Corrigenda ..
Index
PAGE
679-699
|
... 700-701 |
|
632 |
|
. 632-635 |
|
... 702-726 |
|
i. |
|
iii. |
|
vii. |
|
vii. |
|
vi. |
CORRIGENDA.
Page 137, Page 205, Page 206, Page 207, Page 209, Page 294, Page 196, Page 287, Page 328, Page 334, Page 341, Page 348, Page 349, Page 354, Page 355,
Page 361, Page 386, Page 452, Page 540, Page 583, Page 598, Page 600,
I
— for Acthosu!^, read Achthosus.
line 2 -for Nicotiaii.um tahacciun, read Nicotiana tahaccum.
lines 24 and 33^
lines 29 and 37
line 24
line 15
line 15 — for Trymaltis, read Trymalitis.
line II— for 422, read 442.
line 2 — for Oarpocapsa pomonoiiella, rerid Carpocapsa pomonella.
line 24— /o?- 1910, read 1911.
line 30 — after metanotum, add smooth.
line 20 — for luteji-s, read liUeus.
line 26— :/b*' earthern, read earthen.
line 21 — for MegUelus, read Megischiis.
line 24— for Medinoschiza, read Nedinoschiza.
line 21 — after separated, add striae.
line 23 — for Pegarthrnm/iiscipennis, read Ptgarthnim fuscipeniie.
line 28 — for Bat. u. Zool., read Bot. u. Zool.
line 3 — for A. berthoudi, read II. hertJioiidi.
line 36— for P. i(evis, read T. Icevis.
line 7 — for Eledsine ^Egyptica, read Elkusine ^gyptiaoa.
lines 3-4 — for E. coricea, read E. coriacea.
line 32 — for tibia, read labia.
line 30— for asthenogenetric, 7-ead asthenogenetic.
LIST OF PLATES
PROCEEI)IN(>;S, 1911.
Plate I. — Ustilago ewarti, McAlp.
Plate II. — Models illustratiug the Transformation of Drainage, from radial to marginal.
Plate ui. — Bancrojtiella tenuis, n.sp.
Plate IV. — Choanotoinia meliphagidarum, n.sp.
Plate V. — Anomottenia ruinochtti, n.sp.
Plate VI. — Davainea himantopodis, n.sp.
Plate VII. — Illustratini^ the life-hi.stoiy of Petalnra gitjantta Leach.
Plate VIII. — Platycilibe brevi.s, n.sp.
Plate IX. — Piltosporum undulatum.
Plate X. — Rare Australian Cordidiince.
Plates XI. -XII. — ('ordidephyamontana and C. pygmcea.
Plate.s XIII. -XVI. — Hmmatozoa of Australian Reptilia.
Plate XVII. — AiLslralian Coleoptera.
Plate XVIII. —The Peali.s, Yerranderie (looking west from the AVoUondilly River).
Plates XIX. -XX. — Diphlehia spp.
Plates XXI -XXV. — Fibro- vascular System of the Apple(Pome).
Plates XXVI. XXIX. — Fibro- vascular System of the Pear(Pome).
Plates XXX -XXXI. — Favoxites tripora, n.sp.
LIST OF NEW GENERIC NAMES PROPOSED IN THIS V0LUME(1911).
PAGK PAGE
i47m^/ia7«7ia[Lepidoptera] ... 261 , Lathrocordidia\0(\ox\a,ta.'\ 3/8
.(4ressit/c([tIymenopiera] ... 350 Nedino>ichiza[}iy mano^xeroJ] ... 353
Bancroftitlla{K\\\.ozo-A\ . . ... 56 Pa?a/i«(/(ie/»'a[Hymenoptera] .. 653
BracAya7J/^e[ColeopteraJ . 207 \ /'^a<«/ci^i6e[ColeopLera] ... 205
Cliromeurytoma\\iyn\esno'pt&rdJ\ 648 i Prococo7ii.«[I^epidoptera] 250
Co//ace7-o^^o»'a.r[Coleoptera] £'/>jr>"/ia;c«[Lepiciopteia] //er7«e»u'a.s[ f^epidoptera] //erp.y.s/ijXL'fpidoptera] H eiiperocordulia[(h\on-Atti]
450 ! Ptti uidora [Lepidoptera] ... 285
293 iiW/fico;«[Mallophaga] ... 324
225
244
375
/?ic/to/trt/i!ifeWa[ H^'menopiera] 637
iV<e7-?^/io<i-s[Lepidoptera] ... 259
7'e/»/)ere//a[Hynienoptera] 652
7'.V^;A/M/oma[Coleoplera] 475
Xantheurytoma\Y{ym<iuo\)\fT;\.] 650
T^nOCElKlDINOS
OF THE
LINiNEAN S0CIP:TY
OF
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 29th, 1911.
The Thirty-sixth Annual General Meeting, and the Ordinary Monthly Meeting, were held in the Linnean Hall, Jthaca Road, Elizabeth Bay, on Wednesday evening, March 29th, 1911.
ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING.
Mr. C. Hedley, F.L.S., President, in the Chair. The Minutes of the preceding Annual General Meeting (March 30th, 1910) were read and confirmed. The President delivered the Annual Address.
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. L.'VDiES AND Gentlemen —
Among the announcements which I have to make to-night, at this our Thirty-sixth Annual Meeting, probably none will give you greater satisfaction or have a greater influence upon our future career than the statemeirt that we now, for the first time, meet on our own property.
In giving us this Hall, the Founder gave all that was his to give, which was the leasehold of 89 years' tenure. Recently the estate came into the market. In consideration of the aim and work of the Society, and of the great interest of his predecessors in the title in Science, the land was generously offered to us by the proprietor, Col. Macarthur-Onslow, on exceptionally advantageous terms, and your Council embraced
2 president's address.
the opportunity of obtaining the fee simple of the block upon which this Hall stands. Since our former rent is equivalent to the interest earned by the purchase money, the transaction does not disturb income and expenditure, and from a financial standpoint may be regarded as a transference of investment. From a social and business point or view we have much im- proved our position, since we are free to go or to stay now or in the future as may suit our convenience. The associations that link us with the past are not now terminable with the lease.
Although our careful Treasurers have not only preserved our capital intact, but have rather added to it by accumu- lation, yet so much has the earning power of money shrunk that the purchasing capacity of our income is seriously diminished through alteration of indi;strial conditions. Especially do we feel the pinch in expenditure on publication, the very flower of our work. Since the object of our existence is the production and spread of knowledge, all else that we may do suffers, if our publication suffers. By direction of tlie Foimder, the funds that we control are re- stricted each to its proper purpose. So that however worthy of support we may consider publication to be, we are unable to divert funds to this from other directions. For the fviture the money which has hitherto sufficed for an annual illus- trated volume of from eight to nine hundred pages may only provide for from seven to eight hundred pages. Wo are threatened with this diminution while workers increase and more valuable papers are offered for publication.
One source of income which is at our disposal is the sub- scriptions of members. I now make to you an earnest appeal to augment this income by the enrolment of additional sub- scribers. Surely without great effort every active member could introduce two or three well-wishers of science from amongst his friends. To an invitation to join a Scientific Society, a frequent reply is that the person addressed does not regard himself or herself as competent to share our work or to join in our debates. May not they be reminded that
PRESIDENT S ADDRESS. 3
they also serve who only stand and wait, that their subscrip- tions will be a welcome aid to the cause we all have at heart. Where authors are able and willing to defray a part of the cost of illustrating or printing their papers, such assistance would be gratefully accepted by the Council.
Our last volume, No. xxxv., of the Proceedings was issued in four parts, and has been distributed to members. It contained the thirty-one papers which were read at the monthly meetings.
By a combination of circumstances several Linnean Macleay Fellowships have been vacated lately. Dr. Goddard had hardly commenced his year's work when he received an ap- pointment as Professor of Zoology and Geology at Victoria College, South Africa. He left Australia with our hearty congratulations and good wishes for his future career.
For the new year the Council had re-appointed Dr. Petrie and Mr. Cotton, and had appointed Mr. T. T. Flynn, B.Sc, Lecturer in Biology to the Tasmanian University, to a Fel- lowship in comparative anatomy and embryology. Recently Mr. Flynn withdrew from the Fellowship to accept a Profes- sorship offered to him by the Senate of the Tasmanian. University.
A few v/eeks ago Mr. Cotton resigned his Fellowship also, to join the teaching staff of the Geological Department, ixnder Professor David. Mr. Cotton has, in our service, proved him- self an enthusiastic and capable investigator, and we antici- pate for him an honourable and useful career under his Alma Mater. It is pleasant to find that so many advantageous positions are within the reach of those qualified to hold our Fellowships.
In the Bacteriological Laboratory of the Society, Dr. Greig-Smith has investigated the bacterial flora of the stools of children afflicted with rickets. From the preponderance of the streptococci over the rod-shaped bacteria as compared with normal stools, he came to the conclusion that an increase in tlie streptococci is associated with the disease.
4 president's address.
Another investigation led to the elucidation of a pheno- menon of general occurrence in the household. The ordinary bath-sponge frequently becomes slimy from the action of certain bacteria which attack the substance of the sponge, converting it into slime. The nature of these microbes and of the slime has been described by the Macleay Bacteriologist.
The action of heat and of volatile disinfectants in increas- ing the fertility of the soil has recently received attention from those interested in agricultural science. The treatment reduces the number of bactei'ia, but the rediiction is soon fol- lowed by an increase much above the normal. The greater increase means a greater decomposition of the organic matter of the soil, and consequent greater production of food- materials for the growing crop. Russell and the Rothamsted school claim that the heat and disinfectants act solely by destroying phagocytic protozoa, and that the removal of these permits the bacteria to increase. They deny that soils contain substances of the nature of toxins which are inimical to the growth of bacteria.
Believing that as soils are essentiallv a mixture of inert and nutritive materials in which bacteria are growing, they must contain toxic bacterial by-products. Dr. Greig-Smith began a series of experiments with soils and soil-extracts. He showed that extracts of soils, filtered through porcelain, do contain substances toxic to bacteria. These toxins are de- stroved by heat, by storage and by sixnlight. The behaviour of heat explains the benefit obtained by heating soils, and the action of sunlight shows that the toxin must be con- sidered in questions relating to the fertilising effect of sun- light upon soils.
The Macleay Bacteriologist discovered in soil a siibstance which has hitherto been disregarded. This is agricere, a mixture of saponifiable and unsaponifiable fatty substances ; it is soluble in fat-solvents such as chloroform, ether, carbon bisulphide, etc. The volatile fat-solvents have, in this rela- tion, been considered as disinfectants, and this has doubtless obscured their real action upon the soil. The solvents dis- solve the agricere, and carry it to the iippermost layers,
PRESIDENT S ADDRESS. O
where it is deposited upon the ^joints of the soil-particles. The uniform "water-proofing" of the soil-particles is de- stroyed, and they are more easily attacked by the soil bacteria: decomposition being hastened, the fertility is in- creased.
It is interesting to note that in the January number of the Journal of the American Chemical Society, Schreiner and Shorey contribute two papers upon the glycerides of fatty acids and the paraffin hydrocarbons in soils. These ar? the saponifiable and vmsaponiliable portions of the agricere of Greig-Smith.
In the department of Bio-chemistry Dr. J. M. Petrie has continued, during the past year, his studies on the nitro- genous compounds present in plants. The proteins separated by different methods from the seeds of Acacia ^;?/c«a/i<Z!a Lave been examined, and evidence has been obtained, by fractional precipitations, of the probable presence of three distinct proteins. Further investigation of the non-protein nitrogenous substances previously shown to constitute so considerable a part of these compovmds which contain nitrogen has been carried out. These substances have not vet been isolated, and the main source of the non-protein niti'ogen is still unknown. Cholin and xanthin bases account for some of this nitrogen, and it has now been shown that the greater proportion of these substances belongs to groups which decompose slowly on hydrolysis with liberation of ammonia. A number of experiments on the changes in the amounts of nitrogenous compounds during the ripening of seeds have ben conducted. The results obtained conlirni the opinion that, as nitrogenous compounds accumulate in the seeds, there is a simultaneous increase in the amounts of both protein and non-protein nitrogenous compounds. No evidence has been obtained that the non-protein nitrogenous compounds in the seeds are transformed into proteins. Further experiments showed that the pods of leguminous plants may act as reserve-holders for the nitrogenous supply to the seeds, even when the pods are isolated from the plants.
b PRESIDENT S ADDRESS.
The occurrence of a comparatively large amount of potas- sium-nitrate in the leaves of Solaiidra has been observed. Considerable interest is attached to this fact since the storage of nitrates, in other than very small amounts, is confined to a few plants only.
The constituents of the Sassafras tree of New South Wales, Doryi)]ioia mamfrai^ have been investigated. A volatile essential oil has been obtained from the bark from which also an alkaloid has been separated. The amount of oil obtained from the bark is about 1 per cent. It is a fragrant oil and contains camphor among its constituents.
With Dr. Chapman, Dr. Petrie has continued the e.^ami- nation of the action of the latex of Euphorbia pejdus on a photographic plate. Evidence has been obtained that the effect on the plate is not due to a gas or emanation given off from the dried juice. It is probable that the photographic action is due to a particle travelling approximately in a straight line and with a moderate velocity.
The Linnean Macleay Fellow in Geology, Mr. Le<j A. Cotton, who has now rejoined the teaching staff of the Sydney Uni- versity, reports that the earlier part of the year was devoted to the preparation of his memoir on the Ore-Deposits of Borah Creek, since published in our Proceedings. In this he traced an interesting connection between the sulphide ores and the related tin-deposits. Mr. Ward, of the Geological Survey of Tasmania, has been engaged in similar studies in his State. The results simultaneously and independently reached in New England and Tasmania confirm each observer in his conclu- sions.
In the field, Mr. Cotton resumed his investigations of the diamond-deposits at Copeton. After this he examined the wolfram-ores at Torrington, where recent mining develop- ment provided excellent opportunities of observation. These cres are important from a genetic point of view, being closely related to the tin ore-deposits. Indeed it is becoming clear that the formation of the wolfram-deposits is an integral part
PRESIDENT S ADDRESS. 7
of the genesis of the tin-ox*es. Subsequently Queensland was visited for the purpose of correlating the Stanthorpe tin- 'leposits with those of New England.
The information thus gathered was digested in the labora- tory. Three papers dealing with the wolfram-ores of Tor- rington, the tin-deposits of New England and the diamond- deposits of Copeton, respectively approach completion, and will be laid before you shortly. We anticipate that Mr. Cotton's contributions to our Proceedings will not cease with his Fellowship.
During the past Session, fourteen new members were elected, and three old members were lost to us by death, viz., Mr. W. F. Petterd of Launceston, Mr. W. Forsyth of Sydney, and Miss M. Lodder of Launceston.
In William F. Petterd we lost not only a fellow-member, but one of the pioneers of Australian Zoology. He was born in Hobart, June 12th, 1853, and died in Launceston, April 15th, 1910. A man of unusual energy and keen intellect, he developed in boyhood an ardent love for natural history. This was doubtless fostered by early association with William Legrand, the Hobart naturalist-bookseller and with the Rev. J. E. Tenison-Woods. Petterd became interested in shells, birds and insects. A smart bushman and good all-round collector, his services were appreciated by various science- lovers and institutions. Prof. McCoy and Dr. J. C. Cox were liberal patrons, who despatched him on various excur.^ions. Taking every opportunity for travel, at an early age he had seen not only each Australian colony, but had visited the Solomons and some of the east Pacific groups as well.
He is frequently mentioned as the finder of new species described in the first volume of our Proceedings. Indeed he was intimately connected with our early history, as on 3 who served on the Chevert Expedition. The Founder described him (These Proceedings, i., p. 36) with Messrs. Masters, Brazier and Spalding, as one of those "very competent taxi- dermists and collectors" whom he had engaged.
8 president's address.
During the expedition he acquitted himself with credit as usual, but it concluded without satisfying his appetite for travel and adventure. He therefore resigned at Thursday Island, and, with another of like spirit, Mr. Lawrence Har- grave, afterwards famous for his studies in aeronautics, he joined Messrs. Stone and Kendall Broadbent. Returning to New Guinea, he explored with this party the then unknown country inland from Port Moresby."
At the conclusion of this journey, worn with fever and hardship, and with an empty purse, he returned to his native town. He realised that pleasant though his wander- ing years had been, yet the pursuit of science had not aided his material prospects. Wisely resolving that science would be a better pastime than profession, he accepted a friend's offer of the management of a shop at Launceston. Here the qualities that had made him an excellent collector again brought him success. So that in a short time he had ob- tained possession of a profitable business. But his restless spirit sought further occupation. For mere amusement he took up the study of mineralogy. It thus chanced that he became proficient in mineral analysis at the time of th? dis- covery of the silver mines of the West Coast. Prospectors soon learnt that sound information on the value of their ores could be obtained at Petterd's boot store. This association with mining develojoment ultimately led to his election as chairman of several important companies.
His financial interest in the subject did not diminish his scientific taste. He formed the finest private collection of minerals in Australasia, including over 20,000 specimens, which he has bequeathed to the Tasmanian Museum. In conjunction with Mr. W. H. Twelvetrees, Tasmanian Govern- ment Geologist, he wrote several joapers on the geology and mineralogy of Tasmania. At the time of his death an enlarged edition of his "Catalogue of Tasmanian Minerals" was passing through the press.
Stone, "Ten month.s in New (Juiiiea."
PRESIDENT S ADDRESS. »
Conchology was always a favoui'ite subject. For some years he contributed papers on Tasmanian shells to the Quarterly Journal of Conchology. The Royal Society of Tasmania pub- lished a further series, lie produced in 1879, "A Monograph of the Land Shells of Tasmania." Thirty years afterwards, in collaboration with myself, the subject was brought up-to- date in "A revised Census of the Terrestrial MoUusca of Tas- mania." He also joined me, in 1905, in a deep-sea dredging excursion off Sydney. This was the first occasion on which any local workers had explored beyond the continental shelf in Australasia.
The conduct of large business enterprises and the pursuit of scientific studies still left Mr. Petterd time and enthusiasm lor horticulture and philately. A seizure of the heart ended his strenuous life m his fifty-seventh year.
His old comrade in Papuan exploration did not long sur- vive him. Kendall Broadbent died in Brisbane on January 15tli, 1911, aged seventy-three. For about thirty years he had served the Queensland Museum as collector and taxi- dermist.
Another link with the past snapped at the death of Mrs. Helena Forde on the 24th November, 191U, at Parramatta, at the advanced age of nearly four score. Alexander Walker Scott was a member of an influential family in early colonial times. He resided on his estate of Ash Island on the Hunter River ; and occupied himself in the pursuit of natural history. His two daughters, Harriet and Helena, whose married names in after life were Mrs. C. AV. Morgan and Mrs Edward Forde respectively, grew up to share these intellectual pleasures. Their artistic talent found exercise in the careful delineation of the butterflies and moths, native to their home, in various stages of development. The draw- ings and descriptions thus prepared by the family attained publication under the title of "Australian Lepidoptera and their Transformations, drawn from life bv Harriet and Helena Scott, with descriptions general and systematic by A. W
10 president's address.
Scott, M.A." The first three parts were issued iu 1864. Mr. Scott's death occurred in 1883, after which the unpublished drawings, manuscript and unissued copies were transferred to the Trustees of the Australian Museum. After a long interval, four additional parts were issued by that Institu- tion, from 1890-93. In recognition of their achievements the sisters were elected honorary members of our predecessor, the Entomological Society of New South Wales, in 1864. To these artist-naturalists we owe most of the figures in the scientific literature of the period, produced in Sydney. Thus they undertook the illustration of Dr. Cox's "Monograph of Australian Land Shells" in 1868. Continuing, these ladies prepared both drawings and lithographs for Krefft's "Snakes of Australia" in 1869. Two years afterwards the same author brought out his ■■Mammals of Australia, Illu- strated by Miss Harriet Scott and Mrs. H. Forde, for the Council of Education, with a short account of all the species hitherto described, by Gerard Krefft."
In 1865, the husband of the younger sister, Mr Edward Forde, was appointed to the charge of a party despatched by the Government to survey the Lower Darling. Mrs. Forde, who accompanied him, took advantage of the life in camp to observe, collect and paint the plants new to her. The expedi- tion had a tragic end, both the Fordes were seized with typhoid fever, from which the husband failed to recover. On her return to Sydney the widow placed her collections in the hands of Dr. Wools, who utilised the material in his "Plants of the Darling" (1867). Mrs. Forde's elder sister, who married a medical practitioner, predeceased her in 1907.
Mr. J. H. Maiden has kindly assisted me with a few notes on our late fellow-member, Mr. William Forsyth, who was born near Crieff, Perthshire, Scotland, 5th October, 1864 ; and came of good farming stock. He passed away suddenly on the 14th September last. He had been Overseer of the Cen- tennial Park for the last nineteen years, and the fine state of the Park, as we see it to-day, is largely owing to his
president's address. 11
labours. He was an able hoi'ticultvirist aud an excellent botanist.
At the last Commemoration of the University ot Sydney the degree of B.A. was conferred upon him, at the age of 45 years. He had been an evening student, aud it is feared that incessant study, after his daily duties in connection with the Park, injured his health.
He was a quiet student, reserved and shunning publicity he rarely attended any gathering. He was, however, pre- sent at the meeting of this Society held previous to his death, and since he had completed his University course he expressed his intention of regularly attending our meetings for the future.
He had an excellent knowledge of the Flora of New South Wales, and his loss is deplored by the Sydney botanists, as that of a valued colleague.
While these notes were being written the news reached me of the death in Launceston of Miss Mary Lodder on March 5th, 1911. She was the daughter of the late General Lodder, and spent most of her life at Ulverstone, a pretty seaside place in Northern Tasmania. Here she collected shells, and supplied rare species to conchologists. Reference to her work is frequent in Australian literature on the mollusca. Of late years she had resided in Launceston, and devoted much time aRd attention to the welfare of the Launceston Museum.
As a change from the usual procedure of papers only, Mr. Fletcher initiated a discussion at the Monthlv Meeting in May, on Jordan's law of geminate species, as illustrated by Australian conditions. The subject was carefully considered and evoked much interest. On the whole it was not re- garded as applicable either by botanists or zoologists.
The more technical work of the monthly meetings was further relieved by lantern-lectures ; one by Dr. Chapman on precipitins : another by Mr. Henry Deane, on the physiography, botany and geology of the desert country traversed by the Transcontinental Railway Survey between
12 PRESIDENT S ADDRESS.
Port Augusta and Kalgoorlie : and lastly by Mr. A R. M'Culloch, on the experiences of a naturalist in the New Hebrides.
In common with our fellow-subjects throughout the world, we deplored the death of his gracious Majesty King Edward Vllth. The expression of our sorrow was acknowledged by his Excellency the Governor in a letter read at the June Meeting. I have now to announce a second communication from His Excellency, conveying to the Society, from the Secretary of State, an expression of His Majesty the King's grateful thanks for your message of sympathy on the death of His late Majesty, King Edward VII.
Last year we noted with satisfaction that the Syme Prize for 1909 had been allotted to Dr. Jensen. Another of our members has since received this distinction, and we congratu- lated Dr. H. G. Chapman, upon whom the University of Melbourne bestowed this prize for Research work in natural fccience in 1910. His prize thesis is included in our last volume.
The honour conferred by the Sovereign upon Professor David was cordially appreciated by members of the Society. We are, moreover, gratified to learn that this popular Leader of Australian Science has been further honoured by a per- sonal audience of the King, and that his University of Oxford has lately conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Science.
Our published volume reflects but a part of the energy of our Society. It occurred to me to review the work that our members have performed elsewhere. But I Find that their writings abroad far exceed the bulk of the official volume, ?nd I have not ventured to enumerate such papers. I can- not refrain, however, from noticing an admirable memoir from the pen of one who commenced his studies in our serial, '■The early development of the Marsupialia, with special reference to the Native Cat (Dasyurus viverrinus)" * by Dr.
Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science, Ivi., pt. i., 1910.
president's address. 13
J. p. Hill. The process of cleavage, the formation of the blastocyst, and the differentiation of the embryonal ectoderm are described in detail. Against the attack of Prof. Hubrecht, he defends the opinion that the ancestors of the mammals jjossessed large and heavily yoked eggs.
The Council received an invitation from the Australian Board of Missions to co-operate in pleading the cause of the aboriginals, from a humanitarian, from a social, and from a scientific standpoint. Mr. Garland, the Secretary and my- self were appointed to represent the Society. A large depu- tation was sympathetically received by the Prime Minister on January 24th, 1911. He assiired us that the Faderal Government realised its responsibilities in this direction, and that the Blacks of the Northern Territory, now under the control of the Commonwealth, would be protected by special officex-s and reserves of land.
In Australia, as well as in Europe, attention continues to be focussed on Antarctic Exploration. Results from the Expedition of Sir Ernest Shackleton are gradually receiving literary garb. On his way sovith. Captain R. Scott and his staff received a cordial welcome, and a hearty God-speed in Sydney last year.
The next campaign is being planned by our old comrade and fellow-member, Dr. Doiiglas Mawson, who desires to organise an Australian Antarctic Expedition. His field will be the exploration of the coast of the Antarctic Continent west of Cape A dare. Important results for all branches of science are anticipated from his journey. We trust that the example of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science in offering support will be the means of de.spatch- ing a well-equipped party.
For the scientific part of this Address I have chosen: —
A Study of Marginal Drainage. Last year I took for the subject of my address the sub- marine slope of New South Wales and attempted to show
14 president's address.
that the abyss beyond the margin of the continent is a pres- sure-trough.
If it be really such and if it can be correlated with great earth-folds that swell in New Caledonia and New Zealand, then its effects should be discernible in the face of Australia.
Fig. 1. — Diagram showing relation of the New Zealand ridge to the Ulladulla trough.
The term "fold" is here employed in the broad sense in which it is used by Professor C. Lapworth in his Presidential Address to the British Association.* From Hobart to Thurs- day Island the whole Pacific coast is acknowledged to have undergone recent and considerable subsidence. It is l-.ere suggested that this subsidence was effected by compressive movement, and that this is demonstrable by the inward crumpling of the land. The argument that follows seeks to show that the abnormal and distorted rivers, so peculiar a feature of this coast, are a consequence of this cause.
The best studied section of the East Australian coast, that through Sydney, exhibits a magnificent fold in which the coal seams rise in a wave curve in seventy miles from three thousand feet below the sea to three thousand feet above it.f As the coal plants grew in a great swamp, or series of swamps, so the coal beds must have extended horizontally during their formation. Being a fresh-water deposit, it was clearly above, though not much above, the level of th^ sea.
* Report Brit. Assoc Edinl)urgh, 1892, pp. 695-707. t Came, "Geology of Western Coalfields," 1908. Plan opp. p.l60.
president's address. 15
Where one part of an original level sheet is found bent up above and another part bent down below the original plane of deposition, it is a sign of a powerful disturbing force. The valleys of the Blue Mountains and the coast at Sydney indi- cate the rise and fall of the fold to be so fresh as to be pos- sibly still in progress.
Granting that a fold proves application of lateral pressure then the question occurs from which side of the fold did the pressure come, which was front, which back ? Of a moving wave the steeper side appears in front and the longer slope behind.
When a stone is thrown into water, undulations recede from the impact, of these the nearer are of greater amplitude than the farther. Seawards of the Sydney-Blue Mountain fold lies the more gigantic flexure of the continental shelf and the abyss. On the principle of the wave of the greater amplitude being nearer to the impulse, these earth folds should be directed from the ocean landwards.
Mr. A. R. Daly* considers it "a fact that tlie thrust of mountain building has throughout the world been chiefly fi'om the ocean towards the land." And Mr. Bailey Willis
holds that, "There is abundant evidence to prove
that the tangential pressures exerted upon the continents proceed directly from the denser submarine masses."!
As detailed contour surveys in Australia are not available for study, the river systems of the East Coast ai'e here ex- amined. Rivers not only display the present levels, but also to some extent record past movements.
For the purpose of this discussion the drainage systems of continents may be contrasted as radial or marginal. Usually rivers rise in a central highland and radiate to opposite coasts: this may be described as "radial" drainage. A rarer case is where one coast receives the water from a narrow fringe, here called "marginal drainage," beyond which some
* Daly. Amer.Mourn. Science, xxii., 1906, p. 212. t Willis, "Research in China," ii. 1907, p.117.
16 presibent's address.
large river conducts the rain-fall to another coast. Europe, Asia, Africa and the larger islands all belong to the first class, while examples of the second are to be found in the Americas and Australia.
Professor Gregory writes*: "The whole of the noi'thern, western and southern coasts of the [Australian] continent are, to use Professor Suess' term, of the 'Atlantic type.' The eastern coast of Queensland and New South Wales and apparently the eastern coast of Tasmania, are a variety of
the Pacific type in which the motmtains and the
trend of the rocks are parallel to the shore .... The eastern coast of Australia is, however, a less normal representative of the Pacific type than is the western coast of America."
So that in Australia where the Atlantic type of coast occurs there is radial drainage, biit where the Pacific type prevails there is marginal drainage. In some districts the drainage is more intensely marginal than in others. This variation is associated with variation in the submai'ine con- tour opposite each. Where the continental shelf is broadest, there the rivers reach the deepest into the land, conversely the narrowest shelf fronts the shallowest watershed.
The greatest development of the continental shelf in Eastern Australia is attained about the tropic of Capricorn, there it extends for a breadth of eighty miles. This I regard as a fragment left of a wide shelf which formerly continued along the whole coast, but which in the south has been de- stroyed by the Thomson Deep and in the north by the Car- penter Deep. Sir J. Hector inferred, "That an extensive terrigenous shelf must indicate a long continued period of stability."! The tooth print of destruction is plain on the gnawed border of this continental shelf.
A great bight occurs between Eraser's Island and Swain's Reef. A very remarkable instance of the recent retreat of
Gregor}', "Compendium of (Geography," Australia i., 1907, p 85. t Hector, Rep. Aust. A.s.soc. Adv. 8ci. vii., 1898, p.67U.
president's address. it
the continental shelf was here discuvcred by Capt. T. W. Sharp, of ii.M.C.S. "Iris." Eraser's Islanci, Queens-land, terminates to the northward in a prolongation called appro- priately Break-Sea Spit. Nort"li of this, early navigators, among whom were Cook and Flinders, reported water of moderate depth. About 1869 this area was re-surveyed and accurately charted by the British Admiralty. Repairs re- quired by a submarine telegraph cable induced Captain Sharp to re-examine this district in 1904. He found tliat from five to ten miles north of Break- Sea Spit the conformation of the sea-floor had entirely altered during the thirty-four years that had elapsed since the previous survey. Where his predecessors had found from twenty to thirty fathoms he measured from two to three hundred fathoms. The hundred fathom line had greatly changed both in direction and posi- tion. Captain Sharp, who has most kindly su})plied me with this information and the accompanying map (Fig. z!), does not (as I am inclined to do) ascribe the alteration to a move- ment of the earth's crust. He believes it due to excavation of the sea floor by a powerful sovitherly-going current To quote his letter to me, 6/2/ '11, "I consider the bottom in this locality to be liable to variation at any time not by sub- sidence but by currents, as it is entirely sand."
This change of the sea floor extends over nmre than a hundred square miles. Alterations in the neighbouring coast might have been expected to have accompanied such great changes under the sea. But nothing to correspond has been noticed. Yet Mr. A. Meston refers to an aboriginal tradition that a plateau on Fraser's Island near by siiddenly sank into a large and deep lake.* Mr. W. C. Thomson states that "larire masses of coral arc found inland and near the mouth of the Boyne River [Port Curtis] overlaid by mud."t The
* Meston, Fiaser'ji Islaml, I'iu liaiiniitar y i;(])<)H.s Qiieeiisland, ]'M)r<, p. 2. t Thomson, (^tieeiislaiul (ieoi^iHiihical .lounial, x.\., 19n5, p. 3.
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PRESIDENT S ADDRESS.
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president's address. 19
Marine Plains of Curtis Island are considered by residents to show a recent elevation.*
Thoiigh the Carpenter Deep extends downwards to 2450 fathoms, it is shown by the temperature soundings of the "Challenger" to be an enclosed basin of the Mediterranean type up to the level of 1300 fathoms. A ridge, yet unsur- veyed, evidently runs eastwards from the Great Barrier Reef, parting the Thomson from the Carpenter Deep. It is here proposed to name this the Capricorn Ridge.
Eastern Australia is regarded by Mr. E. C. Andrews! as a "geographical unity'' whose salient feature is a simple convexly curved coast. From this he deduced that move- ments would proceed from the land seawards. That unity appears to me to be divisible into halves, one of which is dominated by the Carpenter ; the other by the Thomson Deep ; the former being the younger and more active depres- sion. So I should interpret the convex curve of Andrews as composed of two straight or conravr lines, according to the depth of the submarine contour level selected. One of these is inter-tropical, the other extra-tropical and each again con- sists of series of smaller concavities.
The longest rivers of Eastern Australia, the Fitzroy and the Burdekin, occur opposite the broadest expanse of the shelf. I suggest that the bread th of the shelf has presierved the Jenffth of these rivers and presents it as a submarine but- tress maintaining a buttressed area. (Fig. 3.) Probably this part of the shelf continues to exist rather from the avoidance than from the resistance of j^ressure. Festoons of islands and a dissected coast indicate that subsidence has occurred. So that the escape from pressure, even within this broadest shelf has been partial, not complete. The outline of the shelf and the islands that it carries shew that it cannot
* AiuJrews, These Proceedings, xxvii. , 1902, p. 153. t Andrews, Proc. Roy. Soc. N. S. Wales, xliv., 1910 (1911), p. 462.
■20
PRESIDENT S ADDRESS.
be an amalejaniated delta and thus the consequence rather than the cause of the rivers.
Protected by their submarine buttress, the Fitzroy and
SUBJMARINE BUTTRESS
BUTTRESSED / ^ AREA
Fig. 3.— Coast of Queensland. North of Wide Hay, sliowing the relation hetween the old, long riveis and liroad .shelf in the south ; and the new, sliort livets and narrow shelf in the north.
the Burdekin more nearly represent primitive radial drain- age than any other Australian stream flowing into the
president's address. 21
Pacific. The plain on which they rise is here claimed to be a relic of the old Tertiary peneplain of east Australia. As a geological monument a peneplain might be reasonably ex- pected to outlast a mountain range, since it is safest from denudation.
Dr. R. L. Jack writes: "The divide between the waters falling into the Gulf of Carpentaria and others which flow to the south was quite imperceptible." And again, "The ex- treme horizontality of the surface is due to the fact that tlie almost horizontal beds of the 'desert sandstone' formation cover the district without interruption."*
Mr. E. C. Andrews, who has paid special consideration to the Tertiary peneplain, has kindly given me the following expression of his views: — "A short time ago, geologically speaking, no mountains existed along the whole eastern side of Australia. At that time a gently rolling plain dotted with moderately sized hills stretched from New Guinea to Tasmania. Then enormous deluges of lava covered much of this great plain of Eastern Australia. Afterwards came a revolution in the appearance of the plain. The earth was slowly forced up until it could no longer bear the strain and finally broke along a hundred lines running in north and south directions. Thus some blocks were forced high up to make mountain masses like Kosciusko, while others fell down alongside them for thousands of feet in terrace form, such as the Snowy Valley under Kosciusko at Jindabyne. Never- theless, so slowly was this uplift carried out that many rivers were not even turned out of their ways by the formation thus of the mountains against their courses, but they actii- ally cut their way down into the mountains as fast as the land rose against them. The Lower Plawkesbury is an example of such action."
The whole course of the Fitzroy and Burdekin is excep- tional, showing the characters of age in infancy and the
* R. L. Jack, Queensland Parliamentary Papers, Report Transcontinental Railway, 188'2, p. 16 ; and Coal Discoveries on the Flinders, 1888, pi.
22 president's address.
features of youthfuhiess iu middle age. The peueplaiu on which they rise is old, the shelf on which they discharge is old, but the coastal ranges through which they cut their gorges are new. An exceptional history is required for these exceptional features and such I have endeavoured to supply. The fate that apparently overtook other streams, during the crumpling of the coast, of being broken in the middle and reversed thi-eatened them also. But the partial protection of the submarine buttress rendered the attack less severe than it was either north or south. So these rivers survived as radials, but not without a hard struggle. The isolated sheets of alluvial deposited by the Fitzroy at Gogango and by the Burdekin above Mount Dalrymple, show where they stag- gered in their course. The gorges through which they pass, not at the commencement of their career like ordinary rivers, but towards their close, show where they were almost over- powered.
It is submitted that a perfect correspondence is now shown between the age and the length of the rivers on the one hand and the opposite breadth of the shelf on the other. If move- ments of the land occurred as vertical uplifts or downthrows or as folding from the land seawards, such correspondence should be mere chance. But on the hypothesis of lateral pressure folding from the sea landwards, this correspondence is a natural consequence. It is therefore a strong argument in support of that explanation.
In contrast to the radial river running its course behind the shelter of a broad shelf, we will consider a great marginal stream unprotected within its narrow shelf. From Montagu Island east to the hundred fathom line is five miles. West from Montagu Island to the main divide is forty-five miles. Here we have the extreme of marginal drainage opposib3 the narrowest extreme of the continental shelf in New South Wales. A remarkable section is obtained by following the thirty-fifth parallel across the continent. Starting from Jervis Bay, after an ascent of seventy miles the Pacific water-
president's address. 23
shed is passed at the hills above Lake George. Then descend- ing along the Murrumbidgee the broad floor of the valley is traversed on which the Murray is twice crossed. Not niilil after six or seven hundred miles of travel is the opposite watershed gained at Mt. Lofty above Adelaide.
Perhaps the most interesting tale yet told of the physio- graphy of New South Wales is the vivid story by Dr. Wool- nough and Mr. T. G. Taylor* of how the Upper Shoalhaven River formerly flowed into the Wollondilly, thence into the Nepean and so into the Hawkesbury. Thus it reached the sea after following a course of about a hundred and sixty miles, roughly parallel to the coast and distant from it about forty miles. A crisis in its history occurred. Not only did a pirate stream, the Lower Shoalhaven, behead the former Wollondilly, but a further capture of Wollondilly water is imminent in the near future. In the past the Moruya and the Tuross Rivers have each taken a length from the old river. No marginal stream could have the power to excavate and capture possessed by a radial hence the former must always fall a victim to the latter. These threats and cap- tures are attempts and successes to proceed from marginal to radial drainage, to progress from the abnormal to the normal.
In the accompanying sketch (Fig. -t) the long valley of the Shoalhawke (to coin a convenient name by connecting tlif old source with the old mouth) is drawn as desci'ibed in the memoir cited, but extended southward as recently suggested to me by Dr. Woolnough. It is clear that this river could not have pursued this eccentric course during the last pene- plain period. For under peneplain conditions gravity would force a stream to base level by the shortest way. Through almost level country a river must take full advantage of what little slope it has or it would stagnate. A river flowing, for instance, into the Gulf of Carpentaria could not sfford to waste its fall by setting a course parallel to the coast.
* These Proceedings, xxxi., 1906, pp. 546-554.
PRESIDENT S ADDRESS.
muaatnc
SYDNEY
Fig. 4. — Restoralioii of ilie " Sliualliawke " vallev, bounded by the littonil ridge wliicli fiiiitrolleil the foiiner drainage .system. Young streams cutting aciDSS lluit ridge are now dismembering the old marginal into new subradial valleys. lieyoiid the Pacific watershed, the arrow overlies an area of parallel hills and valleys compressed from east to west.
president's address. 25
So in the peneplain epoch, marginal streams being impos- sible, only radial streams existed. If a simple vertical uplift of the ])eneplain occurred tlic rivers would have deepened but not deviated from their former channel. Therefore, the Shoalhawke could not have held its present position in pene- ])lain times, since when the drainage of its area must have radically changed. The long northerly run of that river sug- gests to me that it was banked off from the ocean by the rise i>f jin intervening ridge. This view finds support in the record by Dr. H. I. Jensen* of a monoclinal fold not older than the Pliocene in the Sassafras tableland. I suggest that a fold, rolling before it the bed of a former radial river, commenced at the Kosciusko upland and crept northward till stayed by the resistance of the buttress of the Hvmter. Sul)- sequent deiudation and deformation have altered this littoral ridge, bui the stream it fcu-nied still bears the imprint of its guidance.
At present the old Shoalhawke valley is fulfilling its natural destiny of being cut across by subsequent streams into blocks of secondary radial drainage. Since a kiUch 2)ar(ill('l tf) ihc xea o^>^?o.s"^.>.' tlic rffortx of tiuttcr to cxrape to hiixt h'vt'l hji I lie short e>if irai/, it could he hiif a fciii pornri/ jjhuAc ill yhiixioeira'phii . Hence the old Shoalhawke \ alley itself must be of but slight geological antiquity.
Mr. E. C. Andrews has already pointed out that the Colo, although the smaller stream, should be regarded as the origi- nal trunk of the Hawkesbury complex. He considered! that its subsequent, a southern tributary, started on a marauding expedition capturing stream after stream until it obtained the Upper Shoalhaven. On the contrary, it is now suggested that the Hawkesbury did not ijrou' out of the Colo, but was driven in to it. If it were so, then the present course of the river would be the ultimate result of abyssal movements.
* Jensen, Proc. Roy. Soc. N. S. Wales, xliii., 1908, p..102. t Andrews, " Introduc. Phys. (Geography N. S. Wales," 1909, p. 40.
26 president's address.
The lower ur tidal portion of the Hawkesbury Kiver reaches the sea through a magnificent gorge, eight hundred feet deep. If this gorge were artificially filled up, the river thus dammed back could not overflow the obstacle, because before the flood had risen to the necessary height it would escape as a by-wash into Port Jackson by the Parramatta River. These levels sviggest that the lower Hawkesbury is older than the height of the country traversed by it. The great depth, two hundred feet below sea level, of the drowned valley at the Hawkesbury Railway Bridge is accepted as a proof of con- siderable recent subsidence. But surely the height of the land cut through by the river is an equally positive proof of a penultimate movement of slow elevation recognised by Mr. Andrews* during which the river sank its channel through the rising ground. On a smaller scale the Parramatta repeats the same history, cutting through high ground as it passes Sydney.
An inner fold is suggested by the Nepean Gorge which "is due to the river gradually eating down its bed as the Blue Mountain scarp was elevated."! The gravel bed at Peurith, descending almost to sea level, might represent the trough between these two folds. If these deductions be allowed we find that ridges parallel to the coast have gradually risen and after being sawn across by the streams they opposed, the outer one subsided. These movements agree with the theory of pressure forcing landwards from the sea. The coastal range along Illawarra and southwards probably rose with the Lower Hawkesbury country.
Inland from the Upper Shoalhaven is a succession of parallel rivers and ranges running in a northerly and south- erly direction. This tract appears to have received a push from the direction of the Ulladulla trough (Fig. 4). The
* Andrews, These Proceedings xxviii., 190.S (1904), p.812. t Taylor, These Proceedings, xxxii., 1907, p.328.
president's address. 27
Murrumbidgee after receiving the drainage of this area en- counters the Black Andrew Range, through which it has carved a great gorge at Burrinjuck.* Following the principle already advanced in the case of the Hawkesbury Gorge at Wiseman's Ferry, the Burrinjuck may be cited as evidence that the hill gradually rose against the river. Troughs would be produced by the elevation of folds parallel to the Black Andrew Kange. The Rev. W. B. Clarkef insisted emphati- cally on the folding which has occurred in this ai'ea. He wrote, "The parallelism of the ranges and rivers, including the Shoalhaven, the Cjueanbeyan, the Murrumbidgee, the Coodradigbee, and the Tumut, all of which have a general trend from S. to N., between the parallels of 35 degrees and 36 degrees S., is not without a significant cause:'' and again, "The Murrumbidgee runs in the straight course it pursues from above Bullanamang to below Michelago in a synclinal depression." Though at first sight these streams might ap- pear to lie in valleys of erosion guided by choice of softer rock, it is suggested that original fold valleys were here deepened by erosion.
Apparently unacquainted with the studies of his prede- cessor, Mr. T. G. Taylor, half a century afterwards, came to the same conclusion. He writes, "Indeed the Goodradigbee, Tumut and Adelong Rivers, may all have been determined by folding or faulting in accord with the general north-south trend of the rocks in this area. The sudden bend of the Murrumbidgee to the west, near Yass, probably indicates where the river leaves the uneasy crust of the Monaro High- lands for the comparative solidity of the western plains.'J
The capture of the head of the Snowy River by the Mur- rumbidgee, described in such admirable detail by Taylor,
* Siissmilch, Joiini. Roy. 8oc. N.S.W., xliii., 1909, PI. x. t ('laike, " Kesearclies in the Soutlieiii (jloldtieKl.s, 1860," pp. 73 and 81.
+ Taylor, " Pliysiugvaphy of Federal Territory." Bull, vi., Bureau of Meteorology, 1910, p. 11.
28 president's address.
appears to be of a different order of events to the capture by the Lower Shoalhaven of the Upper Shoalhaven. In the latter case a high level stream was tapped by a low level stream and then the old river, as far as its lower portion was concerned, just bled to death. But the Murrumbidgee drained the old Snowy upwards and backwards through one of its sources while another source, though eventually inter- cepted, still maintains the original direction. Undercutting at static conditions would not effect this.
Can we interpret the Murrumbidgee capture as due to the development of an earth fold that rocked the old river back- wards for some sixty miles 1 Such a movement would empty of its stream the large but untenanted valley south of Cooma, the Great Monaro Valley of Taylor, to which Mr. Slissmilch first called attention. Since the Murrumbidgee above Cooma still keeps to the bed by which it used to join the Snowy T suggest that a movement which screwed up the valleys till the watershed shifted sixty miles south, pressed down the old eastern Snowy source till at Tharwa it ran backwards to the Murrumbidgee and also pressed the old western source near Yarrangobilly up to flow as a rejuvenated river. It is likely that the two sources were originally of about the same altitude. Such a movement seems of more recent date than a fold which guided the Shoalhawke (and that in turn to be older than another fold of which Jervis Bay may be a vestige.
Mr. L. F. Harper has described the successive shifting eastwards and lowering of the channel of the Upper Murrum- bidgee.* This account is suggestive of an undulatory move- ment of pliant folds rather than the breaking, faulting and tilting of a series of stiff blocks figured by Taylor. It re-calls the classic instance of the bed at Lapstone Hill, whose river formerly drained the high quartz-felsite range towards Wom- beyan. The bed of this old stream shared in the folding of the Sydney-Blue Mountain area and has thus been tossed
• Harper, Reo. Geol. Survey N. S Wales ix., 1909, p.5
PRESIDENTS ADDRESS. 29
from the bottom of its valley high on the shoulder ul the mountain, where it lies athwart and cleft by the i)reseut lines of drainage.*
East of the Murrunibidgee area Mr. T. G. Taylor records with emphasis "positive evidence of the Tcrtiarij fohhinj into which the Cullarin or Lake George Fault has passed at its southern extremity."! South of Lake George the Molonglo River has sawn across this elevation as it slowly rose against it.
The littoral ridge of southern New South Wales fails on approaching the Hunter valley. In the Hawkesbury Estuary the latest movement was a subsidence of two hundred feet preceded by an elevation of a thousand feet. Further north in the more stable area, Prof. David thus records the latest movements, "The apex of the delta near West Maitland rose slowly to the amount of about fifteen feet, while a downward movement was still in progress in the neighbourhood of the present ocean beach between Stockton and Port Stephens. "J
Opposite Newcastle the continental shelf (Fig. 5) reaches its maximum breadth in this State of thirty-four miles, yet is narrow in comparison with that of the tropics and has probably suffered considerable curtailment. Regarding it as a submarine buttress, its shelter affords a radial valley reach- ing further back from the sea, namely a hundred and thirty miles, than any other coastal river in New South Wales. Following the argviment advanced for the Burdekin and the Fitzroy, it is now suggested that the Hunter represents an original radial stream, a survivor of the peneplain epoch. That it has been but partially protected by a lesser buttress, and its head has been withdrawn from the western peneplain in which a larger buttress would have allowed it to rest. Yet it now rises at an elevation lower than the source of any
* Came, " Geology of Western Coalfield," 1908, p. 18.
t Taylor, These Proceedings, xxxii., 1907, p. 329.
X David, " Geology of Hunter River Coal Measures," 1907, p.310.
30
PRESIDENT S ADDRESS.
other river of the State. This interesting feature has been described by Mr. T. G. Taylor as the "Cassilis Geocol."* He
SUBMARINE BUTTRESS
Fig. 5.— Coast of New South Wales between Jervis Bay and Port Macquai'ie, showing the correapondenc-e between the old, long river and the broader shelf, and the young, short liver and narrower shelf.
however regarded it as a shifting westwards of the Main Divide. On the hypothesis now put forward it would be con-
Taylor, These Proceedings, xxxi., 1906, p.518.
president's address. 31
sidered that a general eastward shifting of the Divide here lagged behind. In other words, it is nearer to the condition prevailing at the close of the last geological cycle than any other coastal river of New South Wales.
Professor David has shown* that prior to the outpourings of basalt, a former river had a gentler gradient than its pre- sent representative a tributary of the Dumaresq River. The fact would be in agreement with the supposition that at the date of the basalt extrusion the New England Plateau had not attained its present altitude.
Dr. W. G. Woolnough has generously given me the follow- ing unpublished observations on the relics he has detected of another great marginal valley. "The Lower Macleay is very nearly north and south and lies hclilnd the high rock mass of Trial Bay and Smoky Cape. Thence southwards the broad valley-like structure is breached on the eastern side and remnants only of the eastern lip remain in the form of head- lands like Point Plomer and Crescent Head, and the high lands behind the latter. The dead water of the Belmore is continuous with that of Maria River and boats have been taken by this route from the Macleay watershed to that of the Hastings. The southward trend of the valley ( ?) is con- tinued throiigh Lake Innes, again cut off by high rock masses from the sea. Though Lake Innes is not continuous with Queen's Lake, there is only a low divide between them, probably formed of recent sediments (information re- ceived). Thus we come to the chain of lakes and creeks forming the Camden Haven system. There is a marshy belt joining the southern end of Watson Taylor Lake waters with Cattai Creek, a branch of the Manning. Hence the trend of the valley is behind the rocky masses of Mitchell and Oxley Islands and through the marshes to Wallis Lake. The divide between this and Smith's Lake is low and narrow, and thus we enter the Smith's Lake-Myall-Port Stephens
* David, " Geology of Vegetable Creek," 1887, p.60.
32 president's address.
system which brings us down mostly behind rochy hiyhlands to Stockton Beach. A glance at a map of the coast shows that this particular section of it protrudes as a bulge beyond the general line of the shore to the north and south, and it is in this section only that I recognize at all clearly the features of valley formation described above. Certain gravel deposits, ('.<!■, on the Lower Manning require careful investi- gation. At the present stage all I do is to throw out the suggestion of a very ancient and highly mature coastal valley parallel to our coast line, of which the feature I have sketched above is the imperfect fragment. ' '
The projection from the main coast line which Dr. Wool- nougli describes above is repeated on a small scale by the headlands of Jervis Bay. In this connection it is interesting to note that Mr. Taylor drew attention to the low land within and the possibility of that area being a segment of a former valley* Perhaps the last stage in dissolution of a marginal valley is represented by Jervis Bay.
The process lately commenced in the case of the Shoal- hawke of being broken into lengths by cross streams, the in- evitable doom of the marginal, has advanced in the Macleay- Port Stephens Valley so far as to almost obliterate its course. The longer time required for its greater denudation indicates the antiquity of the Northern valley. We have here also a suggestion of the existence of considerable land to seaward which has since disappeared.
Fig. 6. — Profile from Mount Warning on the left, by way of Southporb, to a point 28° 16' >S. lat., 155° 36' K. long., and thence to 28° 52'. 8. lat., 156° 11' E. long., showing the Britannia Ridge rising to 220 fathoms, from a depth, on the west of 2,650 fathoms, and, on the east,' of 2,832 fathoms.
* Taylor, " Physiography of Federal Territory," 1910, p.ll.
president's address. 33
About a hundred and twenty miles east of Cape Byron lies a meridional ridge nearly fifty miles long, which if it has not yet received a name, might be called the "Britannia Ridge." It was discovered by Mr. Peake when the "Britannia" was surveying a track for the Pacific telegraph cable in May, 1901.* Out of a depth of 2500 fathoms it suddenly rises to within 250 fathoms of the surface. In other words it towers up some fourteen thousand feet from the abyss (Fig. 6). Possibly it represents a fold emerging and advancing upon the continent, an ultimate consequence of which might be the formation of a river of the Shoalhaven type.t
Of South Queensland Dr. 11. I. Jensen | writes, "A some- what recent elevatory movement in part of this area has effected certain changes in the drainage .... It is evident that the Brisbane River is a fairly young stream as regards its lower courses. . . . The Teviot Valley is mature except for a small part .... where it flows through hilly country, and I consider this region to have been slowly and recently ele- vated, river-erosion having kept pace with elevation."
Dr. R. L. Jack considered >< that the Brisbane River first poured its waters to the west and "took the course now fol- lowed by Gowrie Creek and the heads of the Condaniine." Subsequent elevation of the Toowoomba Range tiirned the river into the Pacific ; it probably flowed between Mount Gravatt and Mount Cotton south of its present bed. Finally in late Tertiary times other movements compelled its removal to the present situation.
An area of intensel3' marginal drainage occurs in North Queensland. From Townsville to Cooktown new short rivers pour into the ocean from a lofty coastal range. Immediately
* List of Ocean Depths, Hydrographic Dept., No. 183, 1902,.pp.26-28.
t This ridge is sliown in Prof. Marshall's map Aust. Assoc. Adv. Sci. xii., 1910, opp. p. 450.
t Jensen, These Proceeding.s, xxxiv., 1909, p. 75.
§ Jack, Lecture reported in the " Brisbane Telegraph," 22/5/94.
34
PRESIDENTS ADDRESS.
south of Cooktown the western waters approach to within a few miles of the Pacific, while the eastern streams are a series of cataracts, whose falls-line almost touches salt water. The youthfulness of these streams implies a corresponding youth- fulness for the range which bears them. A recent capture of the Mitchell by the Barron was suggested by Mr T. G. Taylor and myself.* Details of this capture have since been published by Mr. W. Poole and are significant of recent movement, f
The Great Barrier Reef, whose features show vast and recent subsidence, here faces a range apparently of consider- able and recent elevation. The combination suggests power- ful folding, recent or still in progress, carrying the reef down in the trough and the range up on the crest.
Fig. 7. — Diagram of a progressive fold.
The abrupt truncation of the meridional coast line at Cape Melville seems as if a whole coast range thence to Cape York might have broken away and slipped into the abyss. In this connection it may be recalled that Dr. Jack has described! and illustrated a great precretaceous dislocation on the head waters of the Kennedy River running north towards Prin- cess Charlotte Bay.
In conclusion, it is suggested that the last geological cycle culminated at some post-miocene date with the reduction to
* H. and T., Rept. xii., Aust. Assoc. Adv. Sci., 1908, p.411.
t Poole, Rept. xiii., Aust. Assoc. Adv. Sci., 1910, p. 316.
J Jack, Queensland Parliamentary Papers, Report on the Little River Coalfield, 1882.
PR KSI dent's address IV)
a peneplain of most of Eastern Australia. Since a marginal river would lack the requisite sloj)e to flow 'or carve on a peneplain, those were the days of radial drainage , when such a river as the Hunter might perhaps have risen at Cobar, and a river in the place of the Shoalhaven mighl pos- sibly have run from Forbes. The coast would have extended then for some distance seawards of the present position. The Thomson and the Carpenter Deeps, though already in exis- tence, had not attained their present depth or breadth and had lapsed into a state of inactivity.
A new cycle, the present, was inaugurated by the de- velopment of energy in the Thomson and Carpenter Deeps. "The master movements are," say Chamberlin and Salis- bury, 'the sinking of the ocean-basins."* A strip of un- sunken shelf off Cape Capricorn now lies wedged between the peripheries of the two ocean basins. Only at this corner has radial drainage survived. Within its range of action each deep has replaced radial by marginal rivers. Undulations
Fig. 8. — Diagram of transition from radial to marginal drainage. In the back ground llie former peneplain is represented as extending further seaward tlian the present land and as continuing in a broad continental shelf. Recent folding is shown as having crumpled and sunk the former shelf and shore, and as having intercepted former streams by a littoral ridge. Former rivers now reversed are supposed to be eroding the inner portion of the peneplain.
(Fig 8) pulsating from these abysses are considered to have broken back the coast line and ridged up ranges in the coastal districts of New South Wales and Queensland respec- tively. The drainage systems of the preceding peneplains were thereby broken, their upper waters being reversed and directed to another coast and their lower portions being re-
Chamberlin and Salisbury : (ieology i., 1904, p. 520.
36 president's address.
formed to constitute the existing coastal rivers. Perhaps some large estuaries of small streams relate to the reception of greater radial rivers cut off recently. By rapid elevation of intervening ridges, some streams were trapped and forced into lengthy and roundabout covirses. These are now gradu- ally escaping from their bondage, and cutting more direct channels to the sea.
If in the future there should be a long period without earth movements, it seems reasonable to expect that the cycle will run its course, that the crooked rivers will gain a straighter way to the sea, and that their head waters will reach further back into the interior. But the excavation now being performed by the western rivers would prevent the coastal streams from extending as far back as I assume that they did at the conclusion of the jDrevious cycle.
The ultimate cause of these earth-movements is beyond the limits of this address. Contraction of the outer crust by secular cooling has been generally accepted as an explana- tion. Lately Professor Chamberlin has suggestei that periodic compressive movements might be due to a shrink- age of the centrosphere and not the lithosphere. Still more recently Dr. Bailey Willis has advanced the hypothesis that such movements had their origin in the tendency of the heavier sub-oceanic segments of the earth to spread and underthrust the margins of the continents.
Summary.
Last year's consideration of the deep abyss, described as bordering this part of the continent, concluded witli the hypo- thesis that it i-epresented a pressure-trough. Tn support, it was arcued that its confio-m-ation, and certain features of New Zealand and New Caledonia, whence the pressure was supposed to have come, were in conformit}-.
Such conditions should leave signs not only in the dii-ection whence pressure came, but also in the direction upon which pressure leaned, namely, tlie East Coast of Australia Tt is now advanced that the crooked and abnormal rivers, so peculiar a feature of this coast, are a consequence of that cause.
president's address. 37
Previous to the present cycle, that of IVIt. Kosciusko, it is beUeved by geologists that a great peneplain extended from New Guinea, in the north, to Tasmania, in the south. Probably this peneplain extended eastwards beyond the limit of the present coast, and was continued seawards by a broad continental shelf. Pi-obablv also the ocean eastwards was then shallower and narrower than to-da3^
The theory is now advanced that the present cycle commenced by the sinking of the ocean-floor, and by pressure upon the border of the continent. In the zone of compression, folding on a large scale ensued, by which the continental shelf was de- pressed, and the coastal range elevattid, simultaneously.
In support, it is demonstrated that harmony exisi s between the margin of the continental shelf on the one side, and the line of the Pacific watershed on the other. Where the margin of the shelf approaches the coast, so does the divide AVhere the divide retreats from the shoreline, so does the margin of the shelf. Fi-om this it is inferred that a broad shelf serves as a buttress to that portion of the continent that lies behind it. Sheltered by this buttress, radial rivers persist as relics from the peneplain- epoch. As an example, attention is directed to the Burdekin and Fitzi-oy Rivers, the longest rivers of Eastern Australia, which discharge upon the broadest shelf. In New .South Wales even the broadest shelf is narrow, namely, that off Newcastle. But here our rule holds good, for nari'ow though it be, that shelf 25i"otects the longest river, the best example (»f a radial river, in the State. The Hunter is claimed accordingly as a survivor of the radial rivers that nuist have prevailed in peneplain-times.
To show that the continental shelf is still being diminished, a remarkable in.stance is furnished by Captain Sharp, of how the shelf has retreated from 5-10 miles within forty years, near lireak Sea Spit. The coastal ranges and the streams they hear, both in Queensland and in New South Wales, are regarded as very new geologically.
A peculiar featui'e of many rivers of our Pacific slope is that, for part of their course, they run in \ alleys parallel to the shore. Then they are apt to break away and run direct to the sea.
38 president's address
Of wliei'e and what were the rivers of the preceding cycle, the peneplain-times, we have no record. But it is obvious tliat no peneplain could have carried such crooked rivers as the Clarence or tlie Shoalhaven run to-day. Of neces.sity the peneplain-rivers were longer, slower, and straighter than these. They had no fall to waste in that long journey to the sea. On a peneplain, cir- cuitous cour-ses would mean final stagnation.
The problem is : how were those peneplain-rivers succeeded by an entirely diverse scheme of drainage. The explanation now offered is that these crooked rivers lie in a z<jne of compression. That movements from the pressure-trough threw the coastal area into irregular folds. That these broke and caught the radial rivers, which, turning aside, flowed along their furrows. Then at once denudation played on elevation. Rain and river attacked the higher land and broke it down. At every oppor- tunity the river burst through the obstacle which held it back frf)m the shortest way to the sea. As denudation progres.sed, the river broke through again antl again, until I'achal drainage was restored. Finally the old chamiel, chopped in lengths by cross-streams, appears as an empty river-bed. Every stage in this performance is illustrated by the rivers of New South Wales. There is the Upper Murrumbidgee, newly tilted by earth-move- ments from tlie tSnow\- River. Then there is the Shoalhaven River, both as it was when it ran from the present source of the Tuross to J>roken Bay, and as we find it now. There is the old valley, discovered by Dr. Woohiough, running from >Smoky Cape to Port Stephens; and, lastly, the fragment represented by Jervis Bay.
It is clear that as these great meridional \alleys, marginal to the coast, are n(jw undergoing rapid disintegration by the ordinary agents of denudation, that thev cannot have endured such attack for long. Consequently these valleys themselves are oeoloyicallv recent. The same conclusion is thus reached as that arrived at through considering;- that these rivers could not have existed under peneplain-conditions, and are, consequently, far younger than the peneplain-period.
president's address. 39
In my last words from this Cliuir, let mc hope that energy and enthusiasm may never fail you, but may lead you to new knowledge by paths yet unseen, untrod, so —
Floueat Societas Linneana
EXPLANATION OF PLATE. Plate i. 'I'raiisfonnalion of drainage from radial to marginal. Above, a scheme of peneplain-rivers, slow in cnrrent, direct in course, reaching the sea S(iuare to the coast. Below, a scheme of marginal drainage, such as is developed on the East Australian coast. Here folds, newly arisen, have interrupted the radials of the previous cycle, aiid forced them to flow along the hollow s. In course of time, the^e folds are destined to be breached by subsequent streams, thus restoring a radial system, though one less perfect than that of the previous cycle.
Mr J. H. Campbell, Hon. Treasurer, presented the balance sheet for the year 1910, duly signed by the Auditor, Mr. F. H. Rayment, F.C.P.A., Incorporated Accountant; and he moved that it be received and adopted, which was carried unanimously. The Society's income for the year ended December 31st, 1910, Avas £1,039 Os 7d.; the expenditure £1,019 10s. 6d.; with a debit balance of £35 13s. 4d. from the previous year, leaving a credit balance of £16 3s. 3d. The income of the Bacteriological Department was £544 16s. Sd.; and the expenditure £477 13s. 3d ; with a credit balance of £522 Os. 5d. (less £500 since invested) from the previous year, leaving a credit balance of £89 3s. lOd. Macleay Fellowships' Account: income £1,504 5s. 5d. ; ex- penditure, £1,101 15s.; leaving a credit balance of £569 3s. 9d. to be carried to Capital Account.
No nomination of other Candidates having been received, the President declared the following elections for the current Session to have been duly made : —
Pkesioent : W. W. Froggatt, F.L 8.
Members of Council (to fill six vacancies) : Prof. T. W. E. David, B.A., F.R.S., CMC, Heiuy Deane, M.A., F.L.8., ^kc, W. S. Dun, James 11. Garland, M.A., Prof. W. A. Haswell, D.Sc, F.R.S., J. H. .Maiden, F.L.S., etc.
Auditor: F H. Rayment, F.C P.A.
On the motion of Mr. Andrews, seconded by Mr. Siissmilch a very cordial vote of thanks was accorded to the retiring President, by acclamation.
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44
ORDINARY MONTHLY MEETING. March 29th, 1911.
Mr. W. W. Froggatt, F.L.8., President, in the Chair.
The Donations and Exchanges received since the previous Monthly Meeting (30th November, 1910), amounting to 31 Vols., 265 Parts or Nos., 56 Bulletins, 12 Reports, and 67 Pamphlets, received from 109 Societies, kc , and 2 Individuals, were laid upon the table.
NOTES AND EXHIBITS.
Mr. D. G. Stead chronicled as an addition to the fish-fauna of New South Wales, the Sail-Fish, IstiojyhoruH gladius, a specimen of which, 7 feet 6 inches in length, had been captured at Port Stephens during the month. A photograph of the specimen was shown, together with one (jf a much larger specimen recently- caught at Fiji. He also exhibited a living innnature example of the beautiful Butter-Fish, Ephippus nml/ijdsciiUufi.
Mr. North exhibited an adult male and female Stone Runner, Ashhyia lov.i (Ashby), being the types of a recently described genus and species, from Leigh's Creek, South Australia. Mr. J. R. B. Love, its discoverer, remarks in writing to Mr. Ashby, " This bird inhabits the bare plains covered with small stones so characteristic of this country. I have not seen it on earthy salt-bush plains."
45
A NEW 8MUT TN A NEW GENUS OF GRASS. h\ D. McAlpink, Corresponding Member.
(Plate i.).
A grass was sent to me, in November, by Professor Ewart, wliifh lie determined to be a new genus, Saryn; and the ovaries were black and swollen, evidently owing to a smut. They con- tained a black powdery mass wjiich stained the fingers, but without smell; and, on examination, this powder was found to be the spores of a smut. The specimen was from North- West Aus- tralia; and, in a recently published work on 'The Smuts of Australia,' it is remarked " In West Australia only tliose species are known, which attack cultivated crop.s, and tliose occurring on the native flora have 3'et to be discovered." There is no doubt but a rich harvest awaits the smut-collector in West Australia, and the present new species is the first of its kind.
USTILAGO EWAHTI McAlp.
Sori in spikelets, forming a black ccwnpact mass, mu(;h swollen, at first enveloped by the firm wall of the ovary, ultimately burst- ing and allowing the l)lack powdery spores to escape. Spores black in the mass, dark brown individually, globose, averaging 10-13 /x diam., occasionally ellipsoid (13 x 11 /*), densely covered with pointed spikes
Germination as in Ustilayo.
Hah. North- West Australia : Napier, Broome Bay; May, 1910 (Ewart).
On the one-flowered, hermaphrodite spikelets of ISarya stipoidea Ewart and White.
The basal portion of the long and twisted, persistent awn remains attached for some time to the smutted ovary.
If a transverse section of a smutted grain is made, the interior is seen to be filled with spores at difterent stages of maturity, intermixed with slender colourless fungus-filaments rounding off
46 A NEW SMUT IN A NEW GENUS OF GRASS.
into spores at intervals or close together. The spores are at first small, ellipsoid becoming round, colourless, smooth and thick- walled Then of an olivaceous tint, passing into a golden-hrown, with ecliinulate wall, and finally of a deep rich brown, with wall densely spiked.
Germination. This took place in a hanging drop of tap-water, where a large proportion of the spores germinated, and the photographs were taken after five days. The germinal tube or proniycelium varies considerably in length, and is divided into numerous segments, which are sometimes constricted at the septa, and at first densely vacuolated.
Numerous fusiform, colourless conidia are given off laterally and terminally, in chains of three or more, and each conidium is 3-6 /x long.
The new genus of grass belongs to the group Ayrohtv/ece, and there is a smut on Amphipoynn, from South Australia, named U. tepperi Ludw., which somewhat approaches this one, but the aculeate spores are larger, and the sori are in the stems, as well as in the flowers Altogether it is a distinct species, from the mode of germination, the relative size of the spore, and its dense echinulation.
It is named in honour of the Professor of Botany, at Melbourne University, and Government Botanist for Victoria; and this is peculiarly appropriate, since it is the fir.st smut recorded on a native grass belonging to NVest Australia, and which has been determined by Professor Ewart as a new genus.
EXPLANATION OF PLATE.
Plate i.
Ustilago ewarti McAlp.
Fig. L —Smutted panicles of Sarga fitipoidea Ewart ami Wliite, with
liealthy ^raiii at side; (nat. .size).
Fig. 2. — Spores densely covered with spikes; ( x 500).
Figs. 3-4. —'^poi'es germinating, and producing more or less slender septate prom^'celia, with lateral and terminal conidia in chains; { x 500).
47
THE ENTOZOA OF MONOTREMATA AND AUSTRALIAN MARSUPIALIA. No. ii.*
By T. Harvey Johnston, M.A., D.Sc.
(fro/It t/ic Bureau of M irrohioloyy, St/dncy.) (Plate iii.)
A number of additional records have been made since the publication of No. i. of this series (Johnston, 1909, a, pp. 514-523) ; and these, together with a few which had been omitted from that paper, are now collected, the parasites being listed under their respective hosts.
1. Macropus giganteus Zimm.
1. Fihirid sp., Bennett (1834, p. 293) refers to his finding long, thin, white filariae encysted in the knee-joint of the kangaroo, J/, major. There is little doubt but that the parasite is Filaria irebsteri Cobbold.
2. Cocculium {Eimeria) sp., Johnston, 1910, a, p. 804. This sporozoon was found in abundance in the intestinal epithe- lium of a specimen belonging to the above-named species, received by Mr. A. S. Le Souef, Director of the Sydney Zoological Gardens, from the Coonamble district, N.S.W. Coccidia, apparently all belonging to the same species, have now been found in several wallabies (Infra).
2. Macropus robustus Gould. EchiiincnroiR f/raiiuJoxus Gmel., more commonly known as E. polj/niorphus Dies., or PJ . veferinoruin Riid. I recorded (1909, h, p. 79: 1910, a, p. 523) my finding the hydatid in 3 wallaroo, caught in the western district of New South Wales. This larval parasite is now known to infest at least
* Continued from tliese I'toeeedings, 1909, xx.xiv., p.52;i.
48 ENTOZOA OF MONOTREMATA, ETC., 11.,
five species of Macropus, viz., M. yiganteus, M. robust us, M. thetidis, M. dorsalis and M. ualahafus.
3. Macropus parryi Bennett. Corcidium. (Eimeria) sp., was found (Johnston, 1910, a, p 433) in the intestinal mucosa of several of these wallabies, sent from South-eastern Queensland to the Sydney Zoological Gardens. The organism appears to be pathogenic to various macropods, and has now been recorded from .1/. giyanteus, M. parryi, and M. thetidis.
4. Macropus thetidis Less.
1. ErJiiiiorocrus (jrdiiuloiius Gmel. Hydatids were found, jjost morff'/N (Johnston 1909, b, p. 79; 1910, a, p. 523) in the lungs of some wallabies of this species which were collected by Mr. H. Burrell, in the New England district, N.S.W., and sent to the Sydney Zoological Gardens.
2. Corcidium {Eiiiicrut) sp., Johnston, 1910, a, p. 523, from the intestinal mucosa (New England, N.S.W.).
5. Macropus ualabatus Less, and Garn.
1. Eclmtococcus yraiiulosus Gmel. Hydatids were recog- nised (Johnston, 1909, r, p. xxix.) in the lungs of a black wallaby, the specimen being collected in the Gosford district, N.S.W., by Mr. L. Gallard.
2. Bancroftielhi tenuis, Johnston. This cestode was taken from the intestine of this host in Victoria, by Mr. A. S. Le Souef ; a description will be found below.
6. Macropus ruficollis Desm. Distotnum (Easriohi) hepaticuni Abildg. The presence of the liver-fluke of sheep and cattle in the bile-ducts of the red- necked wallaby, is now recorded for the first time. The only other marsupial from which it is specifically recorded is J/. giganteus, though Cobb (1904, p. 659) mentioned that he had found the parasite in wallabies, but without designating the species of the host. My specimens were collected, for me,
liV r. IIAI!\ KV .KlIINSI'oN. tn
by Mr. Herbert Randell, who obtained them in the Yetholme district, near Bathurst, N.S.W.
7. Petrogale penicillata Gray. Sorcoci/stis mucond (Blanchard), from the subintestinal connective tissue, is mentioned by Minchin (1903, p. 351), bnt I have not been able to find Blanchard 's original account.
8. Onychogale frenata Gonld.
Fiilarid sp. (Johnston, 1910, h, p. xii.). This nematode occurs in small nodules in the subcutaneous tissues of the bridled wallaby, and was collected in Gippsland, Victoria, by Mr. A. S. Le Souef.
9. Dendrolagus bennettianus.
F'lhtr'ia sp. (Johnston, 1910, h, p. xii.). This parasite was collected by Mr. Le Souef, from the subcutaneous tissues of Bennett's tree-kangaroo (Northern Queensland).
10. Trichosurus caninus Ogilby. Filaria sp. (Johnston, 1910, h, p. xviii.). Mr. L. Gallard found this entozoon in the short-eared opossum, in the Gos- ford district.
11. Petaurus sciureus Shaw. TIcrniogregarina jjehmri Welsh and Barling, 1908. The account was republished in 1909 (p. 329).
12. Phascolomys ursinus Shaw. Moiiiezin rha'phaiKi Zschokke (1907, p. 261). This cestode was taken from the liver of a wombat, P. womhdt Pei . If the specific name of the host be correct then the locality would be Tasmania, or the neighbouring islands of Bass Strait, as this species is confined to that -region. The differ- ences between it and P. mltrlieJli Owen, the form found on the Australian mainland, are very slight.*
* Lyddeker, Handbook^,to the Marsiipialia and Monotretnata, 1894, p. 126 (Allen's Naturalist's Library).
50 ENTOZOA OF MONOTHK.MATA, ETC., ii.,
13. Perameles nasuta Geoffr.
1. Hcemogregarina peramelis Welsh and Dalyell (19C9, p. 112). This hsematozoon was described from material col- lected in New South Wales.
2. Giyantorhynchus sp., Johnston, 1910, h, p. xviii. This specimen was collected near Gosford, N.S.W., by Mr. L. Gallard, and appears to be identical with G. Semnni Linst.
3. Linstoiria seinoni Zsch. Linstow (1903, p. 2872) re- corded the presence of Tceuia (?) semoni Zsch., in a long- nosed bandicoot which had died in the Zoological Gardens, St. Petersburg.
14. Perameles obesula Shaw. Echinonemn cinctns Linstow (1898, a, p. 469). This
nematode was described as the type of a new genus, Hoplorfphalus, but as the name was already preoccupied, he substituted (1898, h, p. 627) a new name, EcJilnoDenia, for it.
15. Dasyurus viverrinus Shaw. Hrpmopregar'ina dasi/iiri Welsh, Dalyell and Biirfitt ("!908). The description was republished in 1909 (1909, p. 333).
16. Phascologale penicillata Shaw. Gigantorhynchus sp. (Johnston, 1910, h, p. xviiiV This echinorhynch was taken from the intestine of the "brush- tailed rat." It is possible that the host may be Bettonyia qipniciUatn Gray (New South Wales).
Bancroftiella tenuis,
A Cestode from the Black Wallaby,
Marropus unlnhatux Less. & Garn.
I am indebted to Mr. A. S. Le Souef for mounted pre- parations of a tapeworm, taken by him from the intestine of the common wallaby, Marrnjnts iinlahntiis Less. & Garn., in Victoria. The specimens are fragmental, a scolex being pre- sent on one slide. The exact length of the parasite is not
n\ T. WAUVKV .lOIINSION. ") I
known, but ap])ears to be about seven centimetres, the greatest width (which is at the end) being 1-62 mm.
The scolex is very small, its maximum breadth only reach- ing 0-210 mm. The anterior end is a truncate cone, the summit of which bears a retractile rostellum, whose full length is about Oil mm., and its breadth 0-25 mm., the free extremity being expanded into a low cone of 0065 mm. broad, bearing a double series of hooks. In Fig.l, the organ is seen to be partly retracted into its muscular sac. There are about sixteen hooks, their length reaching about 0028 mm. The dorsal root is long and narrow, the ventral root being short, and the claw long, thin, and well curved (Fig. 8).
Situated on the broadest part of the scolex are the four suckers, whose diameter is 0080 mm., the openings being laterally and slightly anteriorly. Behind these organs, the head gradually narrows into the unsegmented neck-region, which extends for a distance of 0-56 mm., behind the suckers. The narrowest portion is only 0105 mm., and is just at the point of the commencement of segmentation.
The strobila consists of very numerous proglottids, whose size and form vary considerably in different parts of the chain. Just behind the neck, their length is 0032 mm., and the breadth 0130 mm., the ratio being 1:4. The posterior margins scarcely project in this portion (Fig.l). Further back the form becomes considerably altered, the length being 016 mm., the breadth at the anterior end of the segments 008, and at the posterior margin 013 mm., the ratio now being nearly 4:3. The margin of the strobila is here strongly serrate, and the segments scarcely overlap (Fig. 2). More posteriorly the form is again altered, the proglottids now becoming more quadrate and relatively shorter, and the hinder margin less projecting, the ratio of length (0081 mm.) to breadth (0-178 mm.) being under 1:2. The lateral mar- gins are here convex (Fig. 3). Beyond this, the segments become much wider (0-534 mm), and overlap to a very con- siderable degree, more than one-third of each being over-
52 ENTOZO.A OF MONOTKEMATA, ETC., U.,
lapped by the proglottis immediately anterior to it. The posterior third of each segment (i.e., the overlapping portion) in this region is very thin. The ratio of length (0178 mm.) to breadth is 1 : 3 (Fig. 4). This is followed by a region in which there is an increase in size, and in the degree of development of the segments, all the genitalia being present, though small and not yet functional. The edge presents a serrated appearance, as the margins project considerably. The amount of overlap is small, amounting to about one-fifth of the length. The ratio of length (0-32 mm.) to breadth (0-84 mm.) is about 2:5 (Fig. 5). Segments which have reached sexual maturity, have almost the same form (Fig. 6), except that they are slightly longer, reaching 0-42 mm., and are much less overlapped by the preceding proglottis. Ripe segments have about the same length as the last-mentioned, but are much broader, being 1-62 mm. in width, the ratio thus being 1:4. Similar variations in the entire strobila were seen in fragments of another specimen belonging to the same species.
Having only microscopic preparations available, no sections were made, and consequently details regarding the body- wall, muscvilature, etc., cannot be given. Throughout the greater part of the cortex of the strobila, there are numerous large, calcareous bodies of an elliptical form, measuring about 0012 by 0-0075 mm. They are less abundant in the anterior portion of the worm.
The nervous system could not be followed with any cer- tainty. There seem to be three nerves on each side, a main strand and two accessory nerves, the former apparently lying dorsally to the genital canals.
The excretory vessels lie at some distance inwards from the lateral margins of the segments, their course being fairly straight. The ventral pair are large, the lumen of eacli being about 0043 mm., the dorsal trunks being very much narrower, their diameter reaching only 0010 mm. The
BV T MAKVKV ,7UHNST0X. 53
latter lie just above, and very slightly mcdianwards from, the ventral vessels. In the region of the genital ducts, the ves- sels become displaced, the dorsal stem becoming pushed dorsally, and the ventral vessel ventrally, the sex-canals pas- sing between them. At the extreme posterior edge of each segment, the ventral vessels become connected by a narrow transverse vessel. In the scolex and neck-region all four trunks are of the same size. At abovit the level of the middle of the suckers, the pair of vessels on each side form a loop (Fig.l). No connection between the loops on opposite sides could be detected in the specimen.
(Jenitdlid. — The genital papilla is located laterally, in an irregularly alternating manner, near the anterior margin of each segment. It is usually not very prominent. The genital pore is a rather large circular opening, which leads into a spacious genital cloaca, whose wall contains a relatively large amount of radiating and circular muscular fibres, the latter evidently acting as a sphincter. This common genital chamber may extend inwards for a distance of 0-10 mm., its greatest width reaching 005 mm. Its usual form may be seen in Fig. 9. At times the whole organ may be much more elongate and distinctly tubiilar, probably as a result of the action of the muscles in its walls (Fig. 10). The length then may reach 0117 mm. but the lumen becomes very narrow, being only 0-007 mm. Opening into the inner end of the cloaca, one may readily recognise the male and female aper- tures, the former lying immediately in front of the latter, both being placed at about the same dorso- ventral level. Occasionally the female pore is slightly more dorsally situated. The male opening faces postero-Iaterally, and the female antero-laterally, the two thus lying very close, and in such a position as would suggest the probability of self-im- pregnation in each segment, an event which was seen fre- quently in the mature parts of the chain (Fig. 10). Both pores not infrequently lie just between the excretory vessels, though their usual position is just laterally to them.
54 ENTOZOA UF MOXOTIJKMAIA, ETC., ii.,
The testes occupy two fields, an anterior and a posterior, separated by the female glands. The anterior field con-
sists of from fourteen to seventeen vesicles lying between the cirrus-sac, vas deferens, female glands, and the dorsal vessel The posterior field consists of about the same number of glands, these occupying the whole of the dorsal portion of the medulla lying between the female glands and the trans- verse excretory vessel, and between the longitudinal excretory vessels in the transverse plane. There are thus about thirty- two vesicles altogether. They are rounded or slightly ellip- tical, having a diameter of from 0-038 to 005 mm. ; and are disposed in two rows in the dorsal region of the medulla. Lying in the angle formed by the vagina and the cirrus-sac, is the vas deferens, a closely coiled structure. From it there passes, forwards and inwards, an uncoiled portion which enters the cirrus-sac in the extreme anterior part of the proglottis.
The cirrus-sac is a very long tubular organ, lying in the anterior corner of the segment, and extending from near the middle of the anterior margin to the genital cloaca. It fre- quently exhibits a few loose open coils, thus resembling part of a cork-screw. Its total length is about 0-16 mm., and the breadth 0034 mm. The musculature is well developed. From its inner end, retractor fibres pass off laterally and slightly ventrally. Within the sac, one may see the coiled male duct ending at the male pore. No distinct external vesicula semi- nalis was seen. In most of the segments the cirrus was partly everted, and lying in the genital cloaca. The total length of the eversible portion exceeds 0-10 mm. The organ is rather wider at its base than at its extremity. Its surface appears to be devoid of armature. In no case was the cirrus seen projecting much beyond the genital pore, but as the cirrus-sac still possessed its corkscrew-like form, it is quite likely that the fully everted organ may project some little distance through the j^ore. In one of the segments, self- fertilisation was observed (Fig. 10), the cirrus being bent
BY T. HAKVEY JOHNSTON. 00
round to enter directly into the Vtigina, the edge of the male organ reaching a swollen rounded part, which evidently was functional as an outer receptacuhun seminis.
As already mentioned, the female pore lies immediately behind, and at about the same dorso-ventral level, as the male aperture. From it there passes inwards, the wide vagina, which almost immediately becomes thrown into a number of irregular coils. In this portion of the duct, one pore is frequently more swollen and rounded than the rest, and, being filled with spermatozoa, evidently acts as an external receptaculum seminis. This latter may be seen per- sisting even in ripe segments. After passing inwards between the excretory vessels, it commences to arch posteriorly, just behind the coiled portion of the vas deferens, which it crosses dorsally, here widening into an elongate, thin-walled recep- taculum seminis. The latter passes into a very short, narrow fertilising duct, which passes through the shell-gland.
The female complex lies just behind the middle of the segment. It has already been stated that it separates the male organ into a posterior and an anterior field. The ovary is a transversely elongate organ, 0!24 mm. in breadth, very distinctly bilobed, each lobe being made up of a number of short tubes. The ovarian bridge lies ventrally below the receptaculum. The short oviduct passes backwards to meet the fertilising canal. The vitellarium lies in the bay between, and behind, the ovarian lobes, as a rather solid organ, 0-075 mm. in breadth, whose margins are lobed. From it, there passes forwards a very short yolk-duct, to the shell-gland, which lies just antero-dorsally to it.
The uterus at first develops in the region of the ovary, but soon begins to increase in size by the development of processes, the other organs in the segment becoming dis placed. In the ripest proglottids present in the specimens, the uterus may be seen as a large, ventrally situated, trans- verse sac with strongly sacculated walls. The whole of the midregion of the segment, with the exception of the extreme
56 ENTOZOA OF MONTREMATA, ETC., 11.,
anterior iDortion, becomes filled by it, as it soon conies to extend from the excretory vessels of the one side to those of the other. Some of the processes from the walls penetrate deeply into the cavity, so that the whole organ appears to be made up of a large number of chambers opening into the main, transversely lying portion. In such segments, the male and female ducts still persist, though they are pushed far forwards ; the testes, though present, are partly atrophied : whilst, of the female glands, the vitellariuni, which lies near the middle of the posterior margin of the proglottid, is the only part recognisable. Ripe eggs were not present, but immature eggs measured 0011 mm. in diameter, the embr/o being 0-006 by 0004 mm.
Systematic Position. — This parasite of the black wallaby is of considerable interest, as it is the first, armed, adult ces- tode to be described from a marsupial. All the tapeworms so far known from the Aplacentalia of Australia and the East Indies, belong to the Ano-pJocephalinae, a fact already emphasised by Zschokke (1899). The parasite under review approaches very nearly to the genera Cliodiiofceiiia, Moiiop;/- Vidium and Anomotwnia, but possesses characters which seem to me to be of sufficient importance to justify the erection of a new genus, Bancroft wlla, for its reception, the generic name being given in honour of Drs. J. and T. L. Bancroft, of Queensland, who were the pioneers of Australian parasitology. The following may serve as a generic diagnosis : —
Dipylidiinas (of .Stiles = Dilepinjt- of Fuhrmann) ; rostellum armed with two rows of hooks ; genital pores irregularly alternating ; genital ducts passing between the excretory canals ; testes numerous, arranged in two fields, an anterior and a posterior, separated by the female complex ; uterus saclike with numerous septa projecting into and dividing up the cavity.
Type-species Bancroftiflht teiiin.<, n.sp., from Macro pun itahthatiis, the type-specimen being deposited in the Aus- tralian Mviseum, Sydney. This genus differs from the three
BY T. HAUVEY JOHNSTON. 0<
reucra niciitioncd above, in the disposition of the testes: and from the last two, in the character of the uterus. Choanoticnla has a single circlet of hooks on the rostellum.
LITERATURK. 1834. BENNKTT.--"\Vaiuleiiiigs in New South Wales," etc. Vol. i., IS'U. 1904. Cobb.— Agric. Gazette, N. 8. Wales, xv., 1904. 1909'i. Johnston.— Proc. Linn. See. N. S. Wales, 1910, xxxiv., pp. 514-02;?.
/>. in Ann. RepL. Bur. Microhiolog}', N. S. Wales, i. , 1909
(1910).
c. Journ. Proc. Roy. Soc. N. S. Wales, 1909.
1910«. Proc. Linn. .Soc. N. S. Wales, xxxv. , 1910.
/,. Joui-n. Proc. Roy. Soc. N. S. Wales, 1910
1898a. LiNSTOW, in Semon's " Forschungsreisen," 1898.
/,. .— Zoolog. Cenlib. Jahrg. v., 1898, No. 20.
]903. AiH). Mus. Zool. Acad. Imp. Sci. St. Peteisbonrg, viii.,
1903(1904).
1903. MiNCHiN.^" Spoiozoa " in Lankester's Treatise on Zoology, pt. i.
fasc. ii. 1909. Wklsh and Barling. -Trans. Aiistr. Med. Cong., viii. (ii.), 1909
(1910), pp.329-333. 1909. Dalykll. —Journ. Syd. Univ Med. Soc, ii.. 1909,
pp. 112-5. 1909. and KrKKiTT.— Trans. Austr. Med. Congr.,
viii (ii.), 1909 (1910), pp.333-7. 1899. Z.scHOKKE. — Zeitschr. f. wiss. Zool. Ixv., 1899, ]){). 404-445. 1937. Centr. f. Bakt., etc., i., Orig., xliv., 1907, pi).261 4.
EXPLANATION OF PLATE III.
BancroftieJUi tenuis, n. sp.
Fig. 1. — Anterior end of the strobila.
Figs. 2 7- — Successive portions of the strobila.
Fig 5. — Segments showing immature genitalia.
Fig. 6. -Segments showing mature genitalia.
Fig. 7 — Segments sliowing uterus.
(All the above are drawn to the same scale).
Fig. 8. -Hook from scolex.
Fig. 9. — Cloaca showing genital apertures, etc.
Fig. 10. — Cloaca, etc., showing self-impregnation.
Reference letters.
c, cirrus— t'..s., cirrus-sac — c.s.r., cirrus-sac retractor — (i.e. v., dorsal excietorv vessel — ;/.c., genital cloaca — y.e.. genital papilla — n., nerve —or., ovary — >•..?., receptaculum seniinis — t., testes — tr.v., transverse excretory vessel — « , uterus — /'. , vagina — v.d., vas deferens — );.f/., vitelline gland — v.e.v,, ventral excretorj- vessel.
58
NEW SPECIES OF AVIAN CESTODES.
T. Harvey Johnston, M.A., D.Sc.
{From the Btireau of Microhioluyy, Sydney, N.S.W.).
(Plates iv.-vi.)
CnOANOTiENIA MELIPHAGIDARUM, H.Sp.
(Plate iv.)
The small intestines of several species of birds belonging to the family Meliphagidce (" lioney-eaters ") more or less frequently harbour a thin, delicate, multi-segmented and relatively long cestode of about 45 mm. in length. This parasite has so far been found in the following species, in the Sydney and Hawkesbury districts, by Dr. J. B. Cleland and myself — Meliornis novce- ho/Jaudi(K Lath., Meliornis serlcea Gould, Ptilotis leucotis Lath., and Ftilutis chrysutis Lath.,(Syn. F. lewini Swainson).
Scolex: — The scolex is veiy small, short and rounded in general form. A very slight constriction marks it off from the rest of the budy. Its maximum breadth is at about the level of tlie posterior edge of the suckers, where it measures nearly 0-2 mm., whilst at the neck-constriction the width is 0'166 mm., innne- diately behind which the strobila again widens to about 0'2 mm. The rostellum is small and unarmed. The entire rostellar sac is a . pyriform structure of about 0*097 mm. long, and ha^'ing a maximum breadth of 0"042 mm. In a few of the specimens examined, the rostellum was seen to be protracted, and appeared to be a fairly prominent conical projection, whilst in others it was (juite retracted. In fig.l, it is shown partly withdrawn. The Drgan in question shows a similarity to that in some unarmed species of Hymeiiolejns, e.g., U. dimitiuta from rats and mice.
The four suckers are rounded and cuplike, having a diameter of 0"058 to 0*068 mm. Their musculature is moderately deve- loped, and the rather considerable depth of the cavity should tend to increase their efficiency. As will be seen from fig.l, they
BY T. HARVEY JOHNSTON. 59
do Tint project to any degree when viewed dorsoventrallj-, but in a specimen seen in end-view, tlie four suckers wei'e seen to occupy the (Hagonals of the scolex, which here appeared in section to resemble a square with tlie corners rounded off. Wlien examined laterally, these organs are seen to project prominently.
.S'<?-o6t/rt .—Segmentation is faintly recognisable at (>3 12 mm. from the anterior end, the portion between this point and the head constituting a short unsegmented neck. The transverse septa separating adjacent proglottids are visible just behind this neck, and a short distance further back (0-6 mm. from the anterior end), the divisions may be recognised marginally by the pi-esence of small indentations. In this part of the strobila the segments are about 0-174 nnn. broad, by 0-052 mm. long, the ratio of. breadth to length being about 3:1. The posterior edges are here well rounded. In front of this the ratio is 4:1. The .segments increase gradually in width and considerably in length, the pos- terior edges becoming obtusely serrate. Well-developed genitalia appear in proglottids with a breadth of 0-71 mm., and a length of 0-45 mm., the ratio here l^eing 8:5. The length continues to increase out of proportion to the breadth. In ripe segments the breadth is about 1 mm., the length 2-4 nun., the ratio now being 1 :2-4. The linal proglottids are only slightly connected with each other and readily separate. The anterior end is "broadly rounded, the widest part of the segment now being anterior, just at about the level of the genital pore. Then there is usually a gradual narrowing, followed at the posterior end by slight widening. Some segments .showed a considerable thickening at this end, due to the presence of a mass of muscle which is perhaps functional in accelerating their abstriction. Another fact worth noting is that the final segments are very thin, flat and semi-transparent.
6'ea:o/>em?tgrs .-— These altei-nate irregularly, the sequence in a typical part of the chain being Jj,L, K,R,R,R,L,L,II,R,K,L. The pore may or may not be located on a definite genital ennnence. Its situation is marginal and anterior, being at or near the junc- tion of the first and second fourth of the lateral margin. There is frequently a slight depression of the segment-edge, leading into
60 AVIAN CESTODES,
the genitaLf;loaca, which is a relatively deep and narrow passage of 0'025 mm. long by 0007 mm. broad. The male duct opens just below and in front of the female opening.
liody-waU, Musculature, etc.: — The cuticle when examined in a transverse section of a segment was seen to be rather thin and almost homogeneous, stratification being scarcely recognisable. It stained deeply. Immediately below it there could be distin- guished a clearer zone representing the narrow basement-mem- brane. This was succeeded by the various subcuticular layers, the outermost of which was thin, and, though some structures could be just seen (using yV immersion lens) in it, their nature could not be made out. Probably, they represented the outer layer of cii'cular muscle fibres mentioned by Blochmann.
The subcuticular cells were very well developed, and possessed the typical spindle-shape. They formed two or three indefinite rows. A deeply staining nucleolus was present. In addition to these cells and just internally to them, there were noticed several branching cells, which appear to represent the myoblasts shown in Blochmann 's figures.
Between the subcuticular cells one could see the small bundles of the outer longitudinal muscles. The ring longitudinal muscles were located, as usual, in the cortex, and consisted of two con- centric series of bundles near each other. The bundles contained few fibres, and were relatively weak, though those belonging to the series nearest the transverse muscles were much larger than those situated more externally. The transverse fibres enclosed a rather narrow medulla between them, the ovarian bridge border- ing on the ventral layer and the upper series of testes on the dorsal layer. They were seen to pass out laterally beyond the nerve through the subcuticula for insertion. The dorso-ventral muscle-strands were moderately developed, but did not show any peculiarities.
Excretory Syi^tem : — Only one pair of longitudinal exci'etory vessels is recognisable, these representing the ventral pair. Each has a very wide lumen, being about 006 mm. in diameter. These trunks are situated deeply in the parenchyma, at about half-way
BY T. HARVEY JOHNSTON. 61
between the middle and edge of the segment. Sometimes they approximate to one surface (the ventral) of the segment, here bordering on the transverse muscle-fibres, a iiai-row s])ace l)eing left between it and the dorsal transverse fibres. It is througli this space that the genital ducts penetrate, while the uterus comes to pass on the other side.
Tlie excretory trunks lie ventrally to the genital ducts, and arch downwards in passing under them, fn mature proglottids, each vessel becomes very considerably widened, and instead of possessing a sinuous course, such as it has in younger parts of the strobila, forms a wide and low arch.
At the posterior entl of each segment these main stems ai-e connected by a wide transvere or eommissural vessel, with a lumen of about the same diameter as tliat of the main tubes. On account of the approximation of the latter at the posterioi' end of the segments, the transverse vessels are rather short, in the riper portions of tlie strobila the constrictions lu'twceii the proglottids become so deep, that the vential trunks approach so closely as to make it (Uttieult to distinguish a distinct connuissuial vessel.
Xervons Si/sfem : — The only parts which could Ix- uiade out were the rather large, longitucHnal nerves. Each was seen in section as a strand lying laterally from the excretory vessel of the corresponding side, just at the edge of the medulla. The genital ducts pass dorsally to it.
J/«/« (jftui^a/irt .-—The testes occupy a compact, i-ounded zone Iving lietween the main excretory vessel in tlie transvei'se jilanc, and l)etwt'eii the female glands and the transverse excretory vessel longitudinally. Thei-e are about twenty vesicles, of a rounded or elliptical form, with an average size of fi-om O-O.'Ui to 0-0-1:7 mm. They are not all in one plane, but are arranged in two or three rows dorso-ventrally. Tlunigh they are generally bounded by the excretory vessels, sonietimes vesicles occui- late- rally from these. In transverse section of a segment, these glands ai-e seen to occupv the middle and uppei' portions of the medulla. In more mature poitions of the strohila. tlii-y are surrounded by
62 AVIAN CESTODES,
the reticulated uterus. They appear very early (as will be men- tioned later), and persist for a considerable time, being found in proglottids with eggs in a faii'ly advanced stage of development; but they are here already degenerating, and, by the time the oncospheres have been produced, no trace of the testes can be seen. In many of the segments one may see the individual testes surrounded by a cavity containing young embryos, this reminding one of what happens in many othei' cestodes, e.g., Afonopylidhim, Dipylidium, etc. The whole arrangement of the testes and of the female glands is very similar to that met with in these two genera, and in Davaiiiea.
The vas deferens passes forwards along the midline at first as a more or less straight tube, above the testes, vitelline gland, receptaculum seminis, and the ovary. In front of the latter it becomes thr-own into a series of folds and coils, and, in a trans- vei\se section of this part of the segment, the vas is seen as a rounded mass of coiled tubes occupying the central portion of the section. It extends forwards almost to the anterior end of the proglottid where it luther sharjjly turns laterally and backwardly in tlie direction of the genital pore. ^\.t about the p(jint where the excretory vessel of the corresponding side passes veiitrally to it, the cirrus-sac is entei'ed. The walls of the vas defer-ens con- tain longitudinal muscle-fibres.
The cirrus-sac is an elongate tube of approximately equal diameter, extending from about the region of the excretory vessel to the genital pore in a fairly straight course, the length being from 0-12 to 0-13 mm., and the breadth 0*03 mm. .Sometimes the sac is rather more spindle-shaped. In all cases the inner end is iiarrowed to become continuous with the vas deferens. The nuisculatuie of the wall is rather weak, the circular and longitu- dinal fibres being poorly developed.
The cirrus, which lies in a considerably coiled fashion within its sac, may be everted to a relatively considerable length, the longest .specimens measured being about 0-13 mm., with a iHame- ter of 0-01 1 mm. It is thus a filiform structure. This organ does not appear to pcjssess any armature. In cases where it was
BY T. HARVEY JOHNSTON. 63
everted, a very prominent genital eminence was visible. Eversion was only seen in segments in which egg-formation had already begun, but it is probable that no significance is to be attached to this occurrence. A vesicula seniinalis was not present.
The female organs consist of the usual glands and their asso- ciated ducts, the whole complex occupying the centre of the sexually mature segments, and lying just anteriorly to the testes.
The ovarv is situated just in front of the middle t)f the pro- glottids lying symmetrically, and may attain a breadth of 0-19 mm., though it is generally rather less than this. It consists of two "wings" connected by a relatively long " bi-idge," above which pass the male and female ducts. Each wing oi- lobe is made up of several short, thick, slightly branched tubes. In a transverse section of the segment, the ovaiy apj^ears as a horse- shoe-shaptfd body with the free ends widened, these being the (jvarian lobes. The bridge is ventrally placed, lying adjacent to the ventral set of transverse nuiscles; while the lobes project upwards, their main mass lying in the middle of the medulla, and their extremities in the dorsal portion of the medulla, at about the same level as the testes. Some of the lattei', however, lie still inoi-e dorsally, being located adjacent to the dorsal layer of transverse muscles. The ovarian cells are large, rounded and finely granular, with a large, round nucleus containing an eccen- trically-placed deeply-staining nucleolus. From the middle of the oviirian bridge there passes off" dorsally, the oviduct. This canal forms a small arch dorsally, and then passes ventrally foi* a very short distance to eniei' the fertilising duct immediately behind the ovarian bridge.
The vitelline gland is seen to be a compact organ, with a very coarsely granular appearance. It has an irregularly rounded or transversely elongate form, and is situated in the middle just behind the ovary. Its size is about 0*086 mm. broad, by 00G5 mm. long. When examined in tiansverse section, it is seen to be situated between the ventral limit and the middle of the medulla. It thus stands at about tlie same level as the ovarian bridge, but, on account of being thicker, its dorsal part lies at
64 AVIAN CESTODES,
the same level as tlie lower series of testes. The organ is also seen to be made up of relatively large rounded masses of yolk- matter. The duct passes directly dorsally and anteriorly, to enter the fertilising duct at the shell-gland complex.
Tins latter complex lies, in the form of a rosette, in the mid- line between the vitellarium and the ovarian briHge, its tliameter being about 0-04 mm. In section the shell-gland is seen to border on the dorsal transverse muscle-fibres. Thus it lies dorsally to the plane of tlie ovarian bridge. The component cells are long and club.shaped, the broad rounded portion containing the nucleus embedded in granular protoplasm. A nucleolus is present. The remainder of the cell is long and narrow, serving as a duct. These cells nre about 0-018 mm. long. They cover the walls of the fertilising duct for a very short distance. This duct penetrates the complex from its dorsal side.
The vagina opens externally, just behind and slightly below the cirrus-sac. It then travels inwards and slightly backwards as a narrow well-defined tube. Just after it passes over the excretory vessel of the corresponding side, it commences to widen o-radually to form an elongate spindle-shaped, thin-walled recep- taculum seminis, which narrows again as it approaches tlie ovarian bridge. Occasionally the leceptaculum is more rounded on account of the contained mass of spermatozoa. 8oon after pass- ino- below the ovary (between it and the vas deferens) the vagina or more correctly the fertilising duct, receives the oviduct; and then, after a very short course, passes downwards to enter the shell-gland complex. It is here that the vitelline duct joins in. Nothing of the nature of a swallowing apparatus was detected.
Situated on the walls of the vagina, in the neighbourhood of the excretory vessel, just where the receptaculum begins, and extending outwardly for about 0*05 mm., is a mass of unicellular "•lands. Each gland-cell is somewhat flask-shaped, tlie large, rounded end being nearer the middle of the segment; while the narrow end, which serves as a duct, is directed outwardly. Thus each cell is ol)li<iuely placed. The protoplasm is finely granular and homogeneous, the nucleus being large, rounded, not readily
n\ T. HAIUEY .JOHNSTON. (v)
staining, and situated in the wider part of the gland-cell. These cells were al)()ut 0009 nun. in length, and were especially evident on that part of the vaginal wall immediately before it passes over into the thin-walled receptaculum seminis.
No bristling of the inner surface of the vaginal wall was recognised.
'o
It may not be out of place to give a brief account of the order of development of the genitalia. The genital rudiments ("anla- gen " of many authors) were just recognisable as a small medianly-situated, more deeply staining area, a very short dis- tance behind the region where segmentation became recognisable laterally, that is, at about 01 nnn. from the anterior end. At 2 nnn. distance, the " spot " had lengthened somewhat, and the posterior end of it had become subdivided to form the rudiments of the testes, tlie anterior part .still remaining undifierentiated. Further back, a transverst^ly placed " streak " was seen to arise from the latter portion, and to develop laterally for a short distance. At this time the anterior portion had the appearance of being rather obliquely placed, whilst the testes were now small and numerous, but well defined, and occupied a compact zone in the middle of the hinder third of the segment. At 5 mm. from the scolex, the anterior mass was seen as a dense deeply-staining structure, rather sharply marked off from the ^estes. The lateral projection had now developed sufficiently to be seen under the excretory vessel, and shortly afterwards became differentiated more or less completely into the two genital ducts, the more anterior being the vas deferens. Lumina could now be detected. The anterior portion of the genital rudiment was now recognis- able as the slightly coiled precursoi' of the much coiled portion of the male duct. This was traceable backwards along the middle of the segment, where it came into relation with the testes. The outer end of the lateral portion now became swollen and some- what fusiform, this being destined to develop into the cirrus-sac. The ovary and vitelline glands developed later, and more slowly. The male glands had reached their full size, while the female glands wex^e still small. Ne\'ertheless, the latter had practically
66
A\IAN CESTODES,
reached their full de% elopinent hy tlie time that the vas deferens and vagina liad established communication with the exterior. Tlie shell-gland was recognisable fairly early as a glandular mass surrounding the inner end of the vagina {sensu lata).
The vas deferens, cirrus-sac, vagina, and receptaculum seminis persisted in segments containing ripe eggs, though all of these ducts were less prominent than in sexually mature segments. The most persistent of the genital organs were the shell-gland and \ itelline gland, the former, or rather its debris, being seen in fairly ripe segments. The ovary was recognisable for only a short distance posteriorly from the point where the testes had disappeared.
The uterus originated on the ventral side of the shell-gland complex, and was recognised rather early as a reticulum surround- ing the testes. It first occupied the same area as the testes, that is, the middh^ of the posterior third of the segment. Small etrL'-s were seen lying in the utei'ine reticulum. As these de\eloped and increased in size, the testes dwindled and finally disappeared. The uterus gradually invaded the rest of the parenchyma, passing forwards and outwards below the excretorj^ vessels. Each lolie or pouch of the uterus contained several eggs, and retained its connection, though sometimes very slightly, with the other parts. Tlie formation of separated egg-capsules lying embedded in the parenchyma, such as is found in the genei'a Moudpylidinm and D ' pylidium, was not recognised. The eggs came to be arranged in single layer, spreading laterally from the subcuticular la^'er of one side to that of the other side, and from the anterior iimX of the segment to the transverse vessel.
The eggs were rounded or elliptical, the outermost shell measur- ing 005 to 0-07 nnn. in diameter, more usually about 0-06 nnn. This shell was thin, delicate, and not resistant. The embryo was elliptical, with a diameter of 0-028-0-039 mm , and invested vevy closely by a delicate shell. This inner shell was in turn sur- rounded by ail irregular l(X)se (albuminous'?) envelope. The embryonal booklets were 0-01 0 nnn. in length, one half being curved and pointed, the other being straight and obtusely rounded.
BY T. HARVEY JOHNSTON. 67
The ripe segments of this parasite are capable of movement, as T have seen them creeping about in the intestine of a Ijird which had just been shot. The progression, viewed with the naked eye, a[)pcared to be the result of peristaltic muscular action. Several ripe proglottids showed the presence of a considerable thickening, due to muscular activity at the posterior end. This may be con- necterl with the movement of such segments, or it may serve the purpose of throwing off the succeeding ripe segment while both are connected with the parent strobila.
Systematic rosition. — As mentioned above, the four species of birds in which this cestode has been found, all belong to a peculiarly Australian Order, the MeIi2)hayidcE or "Honey-eaters." No parasites, excepting Hsemoprotozoa* and Filarkej had been recorded as occurring in members of this family, until li mentioned the presence of these cestodes under the name of Choanotcenia sp. ; though, at the same time, certain differences between this tapeworm and typical members of that genus were noted. A more detailed study of the worm has emphasised the importance of these differences.
The genus Choanotcenia was founded by Railliet, in 1896, with Tcenia infundihuluni Bloch (syn. T. infundibulifoi-niis Goeze) as its type-species. The diagnosis given by Prof. Fuhrmannjl, in a recent work, is as follows: — Scolex small, rostellum bearing a single circlet of hooks ; strobila consisting of many segments, the last often longer than broad ; genital
* Cleland, J. B., and Johnston, T. H., "Description of New Ha;mo- piotozoa from Australian Birds," Journ. Proc. Roy. Soc. N. S. \\'ales, xliii., 1909, pp. 75-96; Id., " The Hajniatozoa of Australian Birds," Trans. Roy. .Soc. South Australia, x.x.xiv., 1910, pp. 100-114.
Juhnston, T. H., " On Austialian Avian Entozoa,'' Journ. Proc. Roy. Soc. N. S. Wales, xliv., 1910, pp. 100-112.
t Bancroft, T. L., Proc. Roy. Soc. Queensland, vi., 1889, pp.58-6'2. Johnston, T. H., I.e., xliv., 1910, pp.llO-I12.
+ Jolinston, T. H., I.e., xliv., 1910, pp.llO-Ill.
II Fuliiinaiin, O. , " DieCestoden der Vogel,'" Zool. Jalirb. Suppl Bd., x. Heft 1, 1908. p. 54.
68 AVIAN CESTODES,
pores alternating irregularly : sex-ducts passing between the excretory vessels ; testes situated at the posterior end of the segment; uterus sac-like. He goes on to state*, amongst other things, that Ghoanota'nia infundihnlnm had been shown, by Cohn and by Clerc, to possess characters which he regarded as sufficient to justify its inclusion in his genus Mono-pylidium, the type of which is M. musculosum Fuhr- mann. He, therefore, considered that a new type shovxld be taken for Choanotcenia, and selected C. (jdlhulce Zeder. Railliet and Henryf then pointed out that, if the type of Clioanotwnia possesses the features of the more recently erected genus MonopyUdiuui , then the latter must be a synonym of the former. Moreover, a type-species, when once designated for a genus, cannot be replaced by another in that genus. They then proposed the name Icterotitnia for the remaining species included by Fuhrmann in his genus Moiiopylidium.
Ransom| has recently given a summary of the discussion, but he has retained both CJiotniotcntia and JIoiiojJi/lidiuDi, though he has given a fuller diagnosis of the former. His i"eason for maintaining both genera is that, in the former, true egg-capsules do not occur, as far as is known ; whilst in the latter genus, they do. He therefore restores T. infundi- hidum to Cltoaiiotitnia, but leaves the other species in Mono'pylidiuui. As he had studied G. infinulibulum in detail ||, he has been able to give a more extended diagnosis of this genus 51 the following details being either substituted for, or added to, some of those given above: — Genital pores
* Fuhrmann, 0., I.e., p. 54, p. 66, footnote.
t Railliet, A., and Henry, A., " Les Cestodes des Oiseaux," Rec. Med., Vet. Paris, Ixxxvi., 1909, pp.337-8. Quoted by Ransom, B. H., "The Tfenioid Cestodes of North American Birds." Bull. 66, U. S. Nat. Mus., 1909, p.74.
J Ransom, I.e., p.74.
II Ransom, Ann. Rep. Bur. Animal Industry, xxi., 1904(1905), pp.277-78.
^ Ransom, Bull. 69, U. S. Nat. Mus., 1909, p.74.
BY T. HARVEY JOHNSTON. 69
irregularly alternate near the anterior border of the seg- ment ; genital canals passing between the longitudinal excretory vessels, and dorsally to the nerve ; vas deferens coiled, vesicula seminalis absent; "uterus persistent, sac-like but may be subdivided into numerous, small communicating chambers incompletely separated by partitions infolded from the wall of the uterus, so that in some cases the eggs appear almost as if isolated in the parenchyma."
In Monopylidmm, there may be a single or a double crown of hooks, the genital pores alternate irregularly, and the ducts either pass* between the longitudinal vessels or dorsally to them. The other features are the same as those in Choanaf(i'iii<(, with the exception of the uterus, which .'s here strongly branched, and finally breaks down into capsules which usually contain one egg.
We are now able to compare our parasite with these two related genera. The scolex is unarmed in the species under review, but is armed in the representatives of the two genera. The male and female genitalia conform to the same general plan in all three, and the genital pores are similarly arranged. Besides this, the genital ducts pass dorsally to the nerve and the ventral excretory vessel. In ChoanaUfma they pass between the dorsal and ventral vessels; in MouojryJidium they pass either between them or dorsally to both ; whilst in our species there is only one vessel — the ventral — present, and, as already mentioned, they pass dorsally to it. The uterus in this cestode arises as a reticulum surrounding the testes, very similar to that seen in Monopi/lidium passerimini Fuhrm.f Ripe segments become filled with eggs, so that, at first sight, one might be led to regard the uterus as being sac-like ; but in section, it was seen to be made up of a large number of chambers, which maintained their communication
* Ransom, 1909, i.e., p. 76.
t Fuhrniami, ()., Ceiitr. f. Bakt., Orig., 1, xlv., 1908, p.o28. Johnston, T. H., Journ. Proc. Roy. Soc. N. S. Wales, xliii., 1909, p. 405.
70 AVIAN CESTODES,
with each other. The formation of separated egg-capsules was not recognised. The viterus thus arises as it does in Monopylidium, but reaches a condition similar to that seen in the typical species of (JhoanoUtma.
The type-slide of Chocuwtii'nia melijjhaijlJdrum, taken from I'tiloth Jeucotis Lath., has been deposited in the Australian Museum, Sydney.
Anomot^nia rhinocheti, n.sp., from the Kagu, Jihuwrlu'tiiK jiihiifiis Verr. & Des Murs. (Plate V.)
Mr. H. E. Finckh, of Mosman, Sydney, was kind enoxigh to hand over to me, for examination, a specimen of this rare New Caledonian bird, which had died after having been in captivity at his home for six months. As this bird belongs to a very aberrant group, and is fast approaching extinction, its intestinal fauna is worthy of some attention. In it, I found numerous very small tapeworms, and abundance of tiny, thin, free segments. The maximum length of the specimens in my possession is 3-7 mm., but, as the final, segments readily fall away, and as the parasites were already dead when I obtained them, the length of the strobila may have been a little greater. The terminal segments, however, contained fully developed oncospheres. The chain consists of a relatively powerful scolex, and a comparatively small number of segments.
The Scolex. — Situated at the anterior end of the cestode, is the rounded scolex, which is only slightly wider than the succeeding, short, unsegmented neck. The maximum width is about 0-27 mm. The four suckers are large, and well pro- vided with musculature, the breadth being 0014 mm. The openings are directed laterally, and slightly anteriorly. On the apex of the scolex is situated a rather long, retractile rostellum, a cylindrical organ of 0-065 mm., in width, except- ing at the free end, where it becomes swollen to form a knob
BY T. HAUVEY JOHNSTON. 71
0086 mill, broad. This knob bears the double row of hooks. The rostelluni may be everted to a distance of 01 2 mm. in front of the scolex, or it may be completely retracted into the strongly muscular rostellar sac, which has a length of about 0-22 mm. The hooks are arranged in two rows, each consist- ing of about ten. In most of the specimens these structures have fallen off, but in the few cases in which they remain in position, one can readily distinguish the presence of two series. The hooks of both circlets are large, being 0062 mm. long, and possess the form shown in Fig. 4. The anterior attachment is long and thin, the ventral root prominent and distinctly bifid, and the claw long and pointed. A few hooks were seen measuring only 0-050 mm. in length, with a much more prominent ventral root than that figured.
The Strohiht. — The scolex is followed by a short, unseg- mented region having a width of 0-21 mm., and a length of 007 mm. The segments nearest the neck are very narrow, but are well differentiated laterally, the margins being acutely serrate. There is an increase in width and length as the segments pass backwards, the posterior angles becoming more projecting ; the ratio of length to breadth of the segment is about 7:1 in the anterior part of the chain, whereas in segments with mature genitalia it is only 3:1, the breadth at the posterior end of these segments being about 0-50 mm., and the length 0-174 mm. In ripe {i.e., egg- bearing) proglottids these dimensions are 0-46 and 0165 mm. respectively, the ratio thus being nearly the same as in mature portions of the chain. In egg-bearing segments the form is somewhat different, the posterior border being rela- tively shorter, and the edges much less pronounced. The corners are more rounded-off, and there is less projection beyond the anterior edge of the succeeding joint. There is vei'y little overlapping in this portion of the strobila, and the parts are readily detached. The genital pores, which alter- nate fairly regu.larly, are situated on a prominent papilla at about the middle of the edge of each segment. The male
72 AVIAN CESTODES,
opening lies just in front of the female pore. The genital atrium is insignificant.
The musculature is weak. The fibres belonging to the longitudinal muscles are arranged in two concentric series of bundles. Owing to the smallness and fragility of the para- site, I was iinable to make satisfactory sections, and conse- quently cannot give much information relating to the sub- cuticular structures, the musculature, and the nervoixs system. The transverse fibres were recognised, lying ven- trally just below the developing uterus, and dorsally above the male glands and ducts. The longitudinal nerve was seen to lie laterally beside the main longitudinal excretory vessel. The latter is a well defined tube, with a lumen of 0006 mm., lying laterally near the junction of the medulla and cortex. Each forms an arch with the concavity inwards, approxi- mately limiting the outer edges of the medulla. A narrow, transverse vessel lying close to the posterior border of each proglottid, connects the main or ventral vessels of each side. A dorsal, longitudinal stem was not seen. The genital ducts pass dorsally to the nerve and excretory trunk of the corres- ponding side.
Male Genitalia. — The testes are from 17 to 22 in number, and may be recognised, at about 04 mm. from the front "f the scolex, as a number of small, round,' deeply staining bodies arranged in a definite line at the posterior edge of the segment, and extending from the ventral vessel of one side to that of the other side. They rapidly increase in size, and then are seen to be arranged, in surf ace- view, in two or three overlapping rows, which are at different dorsoventral levels. They lie behind the female glands, though they may some- what overlap the vitellarium. Their position is distinctly dorsal, the uppermost series bordering on the dorsal trans- verse muscle. Each vesicle is approximately spherical, hav- ing a diameter of from 0-0028 to 0035 mm. From each of these passes off a large prominent vas efferens, which joins its fellows to form the large, dorsally placed vas deferens. This
BY T. HARVEY JOHNSTON. 73
passes forwards, and then laterally towards the pore-bearing edge. It very soon becomes thrown into an extensive system of coils, occupying a very large part of the mature segment, and lying in the antero-lateral corner of the medulla. Some of the coils may be seen in the middle of the anterior part of the proglottid. In a section of this portion, the vas is seen to fill fully one-quarter of the medulla, and to extend from the dorsal almost to the ventral transverse muscle-layer. At about the mid dorsoventral level of tlie convoluted mass, the vas passes laterally above the excretory vessel and nerve, to terminate in the weak cirrus-sac. This portion of the vas deferens lies in front of, and approximately parallel to, the vagina. Contrary to the condition usually met with in Cestoda, the testes persist, and may be distinctly recognised in segments containing hexacanth embryos, thotigh they do not appear to be any longer glandular. The vasa efferentia and the vas deferens also remain, the latter being very con- siderable in dimensions. In fact, the persisting male struc- tures occupy about one-half of the medulla in ripe pro- glottids.
The cirrus-sac is a long, thin, cylindrical or fusiform structure about 007 mm. in length, and 00 16 mm. in width. Its mvisculature is poorly developed. The cirrus, when everted, is seen to be about 0004 mm. long, and 0-006 mm. wide; and to be densely covered with minute spines.
Female Genitalia. — The female complex is not situated in the middle of the segment, but lies rather nearer to the pore- bearing edge. The ovary, which is about 0-16 mm. in breadth, is approximately transverse in position, lying imme- diately posteriorly to the coiled mass of the vas deferens, and in front of the testes and vitellarium. It is a bilobed organ, each lobe or wing consisting of comparatively few ovarian tubes. The lobe which lies near the pore side is situated more ventrally than the other. The bridge connecting the lobes lies more ventrally than these, but anteriorly and slightly dorsally to the shell-gland. A narrow oviduct passes
74 AVIAN CESTODES,
backwards from the "bridge" in a small arch, towards the shell-gland. The vitellarium lies just behind the middle of the ovary, and, like it, lies asymmetrically, being displaced towards that margin which bears the genital cloaca. The organ is about 0062 mm. broad, by 002 mm. long. In general shape it somewhat resembles a lobulated kidney, the hilum being directed antero-laterall}-. The posterior border is divided to form a few lobes. Its duct passes forwards towards the shell-gland, a small organ lying between it and the ovarian bridge The vitelline gland is the most ventrally placed of the female organs, the ovary being the most dorsal. The shell-gland lies anterodorsal to the yolk-gland The vagina passes inwards from the female pore posteriorly to the cirrus-sac and vas deferens, dorsally to the ovarian lobe of the corresponding side, to take up the oviduct just behind the bridge near the shell-gland. A receptaculum seminis was not observed. The mature uterus is a flat, sac-like organ which fills almost the whole ventral portion of the medulla. It lies l)eIow the vas deferens and the remnants of the testes, these structures being present in ripe segments, and occupying a large part of the dorsal region of the medulla The eggs are circular, the outer delicate shell being 0-035 mm. in diameter, the inner more resistant covering 0027 mm., and the oncosphere about 0"020 mm. The embryonal booklets are very delicate, and mea.sure O'SIO nnn. in length.
Systematic. — This parasite has been recorded by me * as Amoebofffnia sp., mention being made of the presence of well developed suckers, an armed rostellum, and somewhat irregularly altei'nating genitalia. A. more careful examination shows that there are two circlets of hooks in this species, wliereas members of the genus Amoebotrciiia have only a single row. It seems to come near Anomotn'nia Cohn, and Late7'ot(eniaY\\\\Yn\., but differs from the lattei- in tlie disposition of the testes. I am, conse- quently, placing it under Cohn's genus.
The type-slide of Anoniofrenia rhinochetl will be deposited in the Australian Museum, Sydney.
* Ji)lmsl(iM, 'I'. H., JiHuii. Ptoc. Hoy. Soc. N. S. Wales, xliv., 1910, p. 122.
BY T. HARVEY JOHNSTON. 75
Davainea himantopodis, n.sp.
from 11 nHaiitopns leacocephalus Gould.
(Plate vi.)
My colleague at the Bureau, Dr. Cleland, recently col- lected some entozoa from a White-headed Stilt, Ilimantojms huroccplKilus Gould, shot at Tailem Bend, Murray River, South Australia. Amongst them, were a few very small cestodes, measuring a little over 1 mm. in length. Amongst the intestinal contents of the bird, I found several ripe, free segments belonging to the same species.
The Scolex. — The scolex is rounded in general shape, and is marked off from the rest of the strobila by a constriction, almost immediately behind which segmentation begins. The dimensions are: length (excluding rostellum) 0115 mm.; breadth 0-146 mm., the broadest part being behind the suckers. Situated in the anterior portion, are the suckers, which are only moderately developed, having a diameter of about 003 mm. The openings are directed anteriorly or antero-laterally. Around the margin of each there is arranged a row of small hooks, 0005 mm. long, which are readily lost in dead specimens. Their form could not be clearly distinguished. On the apex of the scolex there is a cuplike depression in which there lies a protractile rostellum. The rostellum is 0-034 mm. long, and has a broader, rounded, free extremity carrying the hooks, connected with the scolex by a narrower, short, stalk-like portion. The maximum breadth of the rostelhim is 003 mm. Surrounding it there is a double row of small hooks about 0007 mm. in length (i.e., from the ventral to the dorsal root), and possessing the hammer-form typical in the genus Dnvainea. The claw is relatively powerful. There are about 25 hooks in each row (Fig.3).
SfrohiI(i.—As previously mentioned, segmentation follows almost immediately behind the head, consequently an un- segmented neck is practically absent. Most of the tapes ex- amined possessed seven or eight segments. Their general form
76 AVIAN CESTODES,
is shown in Fig.l. The first proglottid is abovit 0017 mm. long, and 018 mm. broad, the ratio being 1 : 10. As the length increases much more rapidly than the breadth, this ratio decreases. In the fourth, the length is 008 and the breadth 0-273 mm., the ratio being 1:3-4. In the sixth segment, where a marked increase in length, accompanied by full sexual maturity occurs, the length is 01 30 and the breadth 0-283 mm., the ratio being nearly 1:2. In the seventh segment the difference is about equalised, the segment being rounded, the length reaching 0-243 and the breadth 0-291 mm., the ratio now being 5:6. The next segment is fre- quently much broader, and slightly shorter, being 0-40 by 0-227 mm. It is at this part of the strobila, where egg- formation is actively proceeding, and where the segments themselves seem to be thrown off, as each end of this and succeeding segments (if any) is strongly contracted. Some free proglottids were measured with the following results : — (a) Length 0-390, breadth 0-468 mm. ; (b) length 0-437, breadth 0-65 mm. This seems to indicate, either that there is a very considerable increase in growth after the separation of the ripening segments, or (more probably) that those which are ripe are so feebly connected with the rest of the strobila, that they readily become detached.
It will be noticed that, in no case, do the posterior edges of the segments project, but that the lateral margins are convex outwardly.
The genital pores alternate regularly, as a rule, very few exceptions being detected. It is only in the larger pro- glottids that the pores are present. They are located in the anterior third of the lateral margin. There is no genital papilla, even in cases where the cirrus is everted. The genital cloaca is relatively deep and narrow.
Calcareous corpuscles were not detected, nor was any part of the nervous or excretory system. The longitudinal mus- culature is seen to be well developed, and to consist of a number of powerful bundles which may be traced from one
BY T. HAUVEY JOHNSTON. 77
end of the parasite to the other. They lie rather deeply iu the parenchyma. Transverse fibres are well developed at each end of the ripening segments, and probably are func- tional in bringing about their separation.
Genitalia. — Traces of the male genitalia are to be recog- nised in the first segment, the rudiments becoming much more distinct in the second, and fairly well developed in the third. In the fifth, sixth, and seventh, both male and female glands are present, the latter very rapidly increasing in size, in passing back from the fifth to the seventh, where they are fully mature. In the sixth and seventh the cirrus- sac and vas deferens are at their maximum development, though male sexual maturity may be reached in the fifth segment. In the latter, the receptaculum seminis may be somewhat distended by the contained spermatozoa. In the succeeding two proglottids, this structure was greatly swollen. In the next, the male and female organs, excepting the cirrus-sac, the vas deferens, and part of the vagina, have disappeared ; and, in segments containing ripe eggs, the cirrus-sac is the only other structure recognisable. In some instances there were indications that self-fertilisation takes place, as the end of the cirrus appeared to be bent round to enter the lateral part of the vagina.
Male (jeiiitdHa. — There are four testes, of a rounded or elliptical form, being from 0043 to 0060 mm. in diameter. Three are situated behind the ovary, the other being lateral to it on the side remote from the genital pore. The vas deferens is a wide, coiled tube lying just behind and inter- nally from the cirrus-sac. It ultimately enters the inner end of the sac as a narrow tube, the greater part of it being thin- walled, and thrown into a few long loops. It then passes back again to enter the cirrus, which, in the state of rest, is about Oil mm. long.
The cirrus-sac is a large, elongate, fusiform organ situated in the antero-latei'al corner of the segment. Its walls are moderately muscular. From the inner end there pass off
78
retractor muscle-fibres. The whole sac is situated well within the segment, there being a narrow, caual-like, genital cloaca (0046 mm. long) leading from the male and female openings to the exterior. The male aj^erture lies just in front of the female. When the sac is contracted, and the cirrus there- fore everted, the former appears as a small, pyriform body with rather thick, muscular walls. The everted cirrus, which is about 0098 mm. long and 0015 mm. broad, projects through the common genital pore for a distance of 0062 mm. It possesses a very characteristic armature, represented in Fig. 5 : at, and near the free end, there is a lai'ge number of long, delicate, stiff, hyaline spines (0-031 mm. to 0047 mm. in length), which gi'adually taper. These come to project backwardly. In the figure, many are seen with their points directed forwards, the cirrus evidently not being fully everted. Just behind these, the tube is covered externally by a great number of very small thornlike spines, biit just at the base of the eversible portion, these become replaced by a third kind. These last are much fewer in number, and larger in size, and project more prominently than the last- mentioned. They have a much wider base.
Female genitalia,— T\\e female complex is situated at about the middle of the segment, though it is generally slightly dis- placed towards the pore-bearing margin. The ovaiy, when mature, is a large bilobed organ, the wings being connected by a short ovarian bridge which is not readily recognisable. Each lobe is a rounded mass, not differentiated into egg-tubes. The diameter of each is about 0'07 mm., the total breadth of the organ being nearly 0-14 mm. A short oviduct passes backwards from the middle of the ovary. The position of the gland in relation to the testes has already been mentioned. It lies antero- dorsally to the vitellarium, which is the most ventrally placed of all the reproductive glands. The latter is a compact ronnd organ of 0'046 mm. diameter, situated near the midline, just behind and between the ovarian wings. From it the vitello-duct passes foi-wards. A shell-gland was not observed, nor was the
BY T. HAIIVEY JOHNSTON. 79
point of junction of the \agina and the other female ducts made out.
The vagina is a wide, short tube leading from the female pore inwards, to become greatly widened to form a rounded recepta- culum seminis lying between the ovarian lobe of that side and the cirrus-sac. A short continuation of the canal passes inwards and backwards below the middle of the ovary. Its course could not be followed further.
The uterus does not persist, as the eggs in segments which have just jjas-sed sexual maturity, are found in great numbers in the parenchyma. The eggs are rounded, having a diameter of 0-0234 nun., the shells closely investing the oncospheres. The embiyonal booklets are very delicate, and are only 0*008 una. in length.
Systeviatic. — The only other species of Davainea described from birds belonging to the Charadrii/ormes, is £>. ndn uta Cohu* from Trituja totanus (from North Germany), a host-name whicJi Fuhrmann f has not been able to find. D. hinumfopodis and J). tuiiinfa show very close resemblance in regard to the form of the strobila, tlie characters of the scolex, and the geneial disposition of the genitalia as given in Cohn's figure. A comparison oi the two accounts shows that ijhe former diliers fi-om the latter in the following points the smaller scolex, the possession of fewer testes, and the much earlier appearance of both male and female genital organs. Cohn's account is short and incomplete, as he had only inunature specimens.
The type-slide of i>. h'uuantopodis will be preseutetl to the Trustees of the Australian Museum, Hydney.
EXPLANATION OF PLATES iv.-vi. Plate iv. Choanolomia 7neliphagidarwm. Fig. 1. — Scolex.
Eig.2. — Segment sliowing geiiilalia. Fig.3. — Female organs, etc. Fig.4.-P:gg.
* Cohn, L., Nova Acta, etc., Ixxxix., 1901, p.414.
t Fuhtniaiiii, Zoolog. Jalul). Suppl. B(l..\.,l,1908, p.ll9.
80 AVIAN CESTODES.
Plate V.
Ajiomotmnia rhinochtti. Fig.l. — Auterior part of strobila, rostellum everted. Fig.2. — Anterior part of strobila, rostellum retracted. Fig.3. — Segments, showing anatomy. Fig. 4. — Hook from rostellum.
Plate vi. Davainea himantopodis. Fig.l. — Entire strobila, with some free segments in addition. Fig.2. — Scolex. Fig.3. — Hook from rostellum. Fig. 4. — Mature segment showing genitalia.
Fig.5. — Portion of segment, showing everted cirrus bearing the character- istic spines.
Reference Utters. c, cirrus — c.h., cirrus-hooks — c.s., cirrus-sac — e., eggs — ^.e., genital eminence — r.h., rostellar hook — n., longitudinal nerve— o.c^., oviduct — ov., ovary — ?-..v., receptaculum seminis — s.g., shell-gland — t., testes — ir. v., transverse excretory vessel — v. vagina — v.c, gland-cells on vaginal wall — r.cl., vas deferens — v.g., vitelline gland — ii.e.t'., ventral excretory vessel — !/.d., yolk-duct.
81
ORDINARY MONTHLY MEETING.
April 26th, 1911.
Mr. W. W. Froggatt, F.L S , President, in the Chair.
Mrs. Isabel A. Salusbury, Sydiiey; Messrs. To>r Irkdale, London; William Rowan Browne, University of Sydney; Ernest Arthur D'Ombrain, M.B., Sydney; William F. N. Greenwogo, Hawkesburv Agricultural Collesje; Ewe\ Mackinnon, B.Sc, Department of Agriculture, Sydney; and Professor Robekt DiCKiK Watt, M.A., B.Sc, University of Sydne\", were elected Ordinary Members of the Society.
The President announced that, under the provisions of Rule XXV., the Council had elected Mr. T. Steel, F.L.S., Mr A. H. Lucas, M.A., B.Sc, Mr. J. R. (^larland, M.A., and Mr. C. Hedle}', F L.S., to be Vice-Presidents; and Mr. J. H. Campbell, [Royal Mint, Macquarie Street] to be Hon. Treasurer, foi- the current Session.
The Pre.sident also gave notice tliat, during tlie winter months (May-August), the Monthly Meetings would begin at 7.30 p.m , instead of 8 o'clock.
The Donations and Exchanges received since the previous Monthly Meeting (29th March, 1911), amounting to 16 Vols, 73 Parts or Nos., 10 Bulletins, 5 Reports, and 6 Pamphlets, received from 4X Societies ifec, were laid upon the table.
6
82
NOTES AND EXHIBITS.
Mr. Basset Hull exhibited an egg aiul nestlings of Oestrelata leucoptera Gould (White-winged Petrel), taken at Cabbage Tree Island, near the entrance to Port .Stephens, N.8.W. The egg was taken on the 4th December, 1910, on which date many birds were found sitting on fresh or slightly incubated eggs. The nests were phiced aniongst loose boulders or in crevices under rocks in a gully densely wooded with the Cabbage Palms ( lAviistona australisj to which tlie Island owes its name. Very little material was used to line the hollows iii wliich the eggs were laid, merely a few shreds of fibre or dead fronds form- ing the nests. The eggs are pure white, without gloss, stout, rounded, oval in shape, average dimensions 1-96 x 1-46 inches. The nestlings were taken on 30th Januaiy, 1910 ; tlun' were in down, bluish-grey on the upper surface, ajid greyish- white on the breast. The feet show the characteristic colouration of the adult l)ir<l, the basal half of the interdigital meml)rane being black.
Mr. A. R. McCulloch exhibited, by permission of the Curator of the Australian Museum, specimens of Gadopsis mamwratns Richardson, from Manilla on the Namoi River, and R3^1estone on a tributary of the Macquarie. This species does not appear to have been previously recorded so far north. Also a specimen of Epiue/'hdus lauceolahis, Bloch, from Clifton, N.S.Wales. A specimen of this fish was exhibited by Sir William Macleay, in 1886, wliich was obtained in the Cairns district, Queensland, and is apparently the only other Australian specimen known. A drawing of S<-huellea ncalaripiniiis Steindachner, was ex- hibited. This species was described from Port Jackson, in 1866, but has been overlooked by all latei- writers. An allied species was described from West Australia by Mr. Waite, in 1905, as Urawichthys iv(>odtva7-di ; while Steindachner's species was again noted from Sydney, though under Waite's name, in the following year by Mr. Stead. A comparison of specimens, however, shows
NOTKS ANM) EXHIBITS. 83
that till' (>;istoni and western forms are distinct, so that the former should be known as ^'. scalaripiniiis, and the hitter as S. woodwardi.
\h\ T. H. Joluiston exliil)ited specimens of barnyard-^'rass (Paiiiciim crus-(//dli), showing tlie presence of a smut, Cintractia a-usgalli Tr. and Earle (collected by Mr. W. M. Carne at Rich- mond, N.S.W.); and of Dconinei-a stricta K.Br., iiifected with the iecidial stage of a rust, I')icchi,i(i dnmpierir. Syd. (collected by Dr. Cleland at Middle Harhuur, April, 1911).
Mr. A. A. Hamilton showed specimens of six species of plants collected at Douglas Park, on December 31st, 1910, which had not previously been recorded from Lhat locality — Didymotheca thesiodes. Hook, (new for N.S.W.); Anthocercis aJbicmis Cunn. (Fl. Austr. : Bathurst, Cassilis.; Solanum cavipanuJa/imi 11. Br. (Fl. Austr.: Port Jackson to Queensland); Zornia diphylla Pcrs. (E\. Austr.: Port Jackson to Queensland): Heif.ocharis cylivdroslacliys Boeck. (Fl. Austr.: Camden to Queensland): and Schoenv,s Moorei Benth (Fl Austr.: Port Jackson district).
Dr Chapman pointed out that at certain seasons of the year it was not uncommim to find .samples of milk which contained less than 85 per cent, solids not fat. It was also known that the milk fnm^ certain cows and from certain races of cows yielded less than 8-5 per cent, solids not fat. It was therefore erroneous to conclude that a milk containing less than 8-5 per cent, soiids not fat had necessarily been adulterated with watei'. In the case of certain Durham cows, it was noted that although the amount of solids not fat was less than 8;"3 per cent, the amount of fat was high, viz , 4 G per cent. 8uch milks have a high caloric value, and are therefore valuable as foods.
Mr, Fred Turner exhibited, and t)ftered observations on : (1) CiiSGuta fasmanica Engelm., found on Medicfo/o antiva Liini., in the Bombala distict, N.S.W., and regarded as a great pest. Mr. Turner was the first to record this interesting parasitical plant for New South Wales ("Agricultural Gazette/' Vol. ii., p. 289,
<S4 XOIES AND KXHIBITS.
1891), a specimen having been forwarded to him for identifica- tion by the Rev. W. F. Frazer, Murrurundi, who found it on the introduced Marruhium indgare Linn. — (2) Kochia scoparia Schr., found near Glen Innes, New England, N.8.W., where it has recently appeared in the pastures. This annual Chenopodiaceous plant, indigenous to Greece, is cultivated in European gardens for its decidedly ornamental appearance. In summer the foliage is light green, and in autumn it assumes a crimson colour. — (3) Abnormal inflorescence of Sechium edule Swartz, var. viridis, a West Indian Cucurbitaceous plant. On several of the ovaries, each containing a single pendulous ovule, the flowers were didymous, some quite free and others confluent, but all the stigmas were perfect, and the fruit normal The exhibitor had grown the plant in his garden for many years, but never before had he observed the flowers in the condition shown
Mr. North sent for exhibition a skin of Pujfitiiis carneipes Gould, from Lord Howe Island, and of P. chlororhynchos Lesson, from South Solitary Island, on the northern coast of New South AVales, togethei- with the following note — "The skin of P. cdrneijyes is from one of three live birds presented on the 27th March, 1911, to the Trustees of the Australian Museum, by Mr. William Whiting of Lord Howe Island. Much confusion has existed in connection with this species. Dr. E. P. Ramsay referred the birds collected by Mr. Etheridge and party of the Australian Museum, in August-September, 1887, on Lord Howe Island, to Pnfflnus bt-evieaudus Brandt { = P- teimiroslris Tem ); likewise the eggs and birds, collected by Mr. E. H. Saunders, in the same locality in November of tlie same year. On the 28th January, 1904, I added P. carneipes to the Lord Howe Island avifauna, in the " Records of the Australian Museum," Vol. v., p. 126, and found out on visiting that locality in October, 1910, that P. carneipes was the common species breeding in the dense palm and banyan vegetation between Middle Beach and Ti-ansit Hill. P. tenuirostris does not occur on Lord Howe Island, or in its vicinity. The other specimen, P. chlorohrynchof, was one of several received by the Trustees
NoTKS AM) KXmiilTS. 85
of the Australian Museum from Mr. Jennings, of South Solitary Island, on the 18tli November, 1878. In the Society's Proceed- ings (Vol. iii., p. 406, 1879), Dr. Ramsay erroneously attributed these birds, together with their eggs, which he described, to P. cm-neipes.
Mr. North also contributed the following note on a further description of the genus Ashbyia. " In the March, 1911, number of the " Agricultural Gazette of New South Wales," I briefly- characterised the genus Ashbyia, which may now be amplified. Bill about half as long as head, nearly straight, comparatively deep, but Jaroader than deep at nostril, the upper mandible arched and gently decurving towards the tip; wings nearly twice the length of tail, the first primary very short, the third longest, the second and fourth nearly equal; the longest upper tail-coverts half the length of tail-feathers; tarsus comparatively slender, about half the length of tail-feathers; middle toe the longest, and, without the claw, equal in length to the hind toe with claw. The genus Ashbyia is allied to £Jphthianu7'a, but the latter may be distinguished by its more slender and pointed bill, its shorter wing and different wing-formula, and by its longei- upper tail- coverts."
8(3
STUDIES IN THE LIFE-HISTORIES OF AUSTRALIAN ODONATA.
No. 4. Further notes on the life-history of Petalura gigantea Leach.
By R. J. TiLLYARD, M.A., F.E.S.
(Plate vii.)
Since the publication, in 1909*, of my paper on the life- history of I'd (i! lira (jiijanteii Leach, I have collected a con- siderable amount of new and interesting information about it. This is now included in the present paper, and brings the study of this remarkable species much closer to com- pletion.
After I had obtained the supply of exuvias from the Leura swamp (Blue Mountains), in 1908, I determined, if possible, to find the living larva. For this purpose, I visited Leura in October, 1909, and searched tlie swamp carefully, collect- ing mud from various "pot-holes" and examining it, and also dredging the larger holes in the swamp. No success attended these efforts. However, during a visit to Medlow, Blue Mountains, in the middle of November, 1909, I found a fairly lax'gc and conveniently situated swamp, over a restricted portion of which the Petdhtra exuviae were found clinging to the I'eed-stems. The next morning I got up about 5.30 a.m., and visited this swamp. As I expected, the I'ctdlura larvae were emerging in fair numbers, and many were only just climbing out of the swamp. As I particularly wanted to examine the gizzard of the larva, T collected half-a-dozen quickly into a box, and returned with them. But so rapidly was the final change approaching,
* Studies in the Life-Histories of AustraliaM Odonata, ['art i., These Pioceediiigs, 1909, Vol., xxxiv , p. 697.
BY R. J. TILLYARD.
87
that, by the time I got back, they were all emerging in the box. In any case, the actual internal metamorphoses had proceeded too far fdr an examination of larval structures, even if I had attempted it the moment I took them.
Returning to the swamp, I set about trying to solve the problem, where and how the larvae lived. My friend. Dr. F. Ris, to whom I had sent specimens of the exuviae, had pointed out to me that, in every case, the anal opening was wide open in the cast-skin. This fact led him to believe that these larvae were not aquatic, but air-breathers. Bear- ing tliis in mind, I selected a large clump of sedge in the middle of the swamp, to which three exuviae were clinging, and carefully examined the clump itself. Close to the base of the stalk on which the first exuviae were found, I dis- covered a neat round liole, about half-an-inch in diameter. On examining the bases of the other two stalks which carried exuviae, I found similar holes. Passing on to other clumps, I found that, in every case where there were exuviffi on the reed-stems, a neat, round hole occurred close by, near the base. Next, with a knife, I cut away the edge of one of the holes, and followed it down. It was very damp, and the sides smooth and plastered with the soft mud of the swamp, enclosing the matted roots of the sedge. At the water-level the hole was, of course, full of water, and thence downwards it got looser, finally becoming indistinguishable in the watery ooze lower down.
It was now necessary to decide whether these holes wcfc made by the larvae simply for the purpose of emerging, or whether they were more or less permanent, and used as channels of communication, or perhaps for foraging excur- sions, possibly at night-time. As the larvae had nearly all emerged, I had to wait another year before I could carry on this investigation. On November 5th, 1910 (a date chosen as likely to give a prospect of finding the larvae nearly full- fed, but not yet emerged), Mr. C. Gibbons, of Hornsby, and myself went to the swamp at Medlow. We were provided
88 LIFE HISTORIES OF AUSTRALIAN ODONATA, iv.,
with a long-bladed draining-spade, and two large, sharp knives for cutting the sedge. The swamp was unaltered in appearance, and I soon found a large clump (marked A in the diagram) near the spot which I had examined a year previously. On cutting away the sedge level with the clump, we fovmd three distinct, round holes. These were the entrances to three nearly vertical channels, of which two (a J and a^) are shown in the diagram. By slicing away the matted roots surrounding them, we cut down to the water- level, about six inches, and then followed the channels down another foot or more, where they turned into a wider and looser horizontal channel. The latter, however, was soon lost, as it collapsed on examination. The outer channel, a^, being in firmer mud, proceeded downwards another six inches or more, and then turned into a horizontal channel, loose, and easily destroyed like the other.
We next began to dig out the clump A at the side border- ing the small depression or water-hole C. On cutting out a slab, the whole depth of the hole, we discovered a well-made channel (a 3) opening out at ttie side of the clump A, heloiv the water-level. This was not quite vertical, and on follow- ing it down, about a foot, it turned into a softer, horizontal channel, which I took to be the same one that connected a, and ag. I then followed this horizontal channel under C, where the mud was very loose and slimy. As long as there wei'e roots enough to hold together at all, there was a dis- tinct passage ; but it collapsed almost on touching. How- ever, it seemed to be a distinct connection, of a very flimsy kind, leading from the clump A, under C, to the clump B, and was about the right width for the easy passage of Fetalura larvae. Probably, in the softer ooze, the larvae just push their way along, and leave an unstable passage-way behind them, which collapses whenever a rain-storm increases the pressure from above.
So far (after working nearly an hour) we had found no larvae. But on dredging out the soft mud along the hori-
BY R. J. TILLYARD. 89
zontal channel under C, we found two in quick succession, both males and fairly well-grown. I was surprised to find them so different in appearance from what I had imagined when I examined the exuviae. They are very flabby, and appear ill-nourished. In colour, and to the touch, they are rather like the fleshy white grubs of Scarabeid beetles so commonly found when gardening. The abdomen is fleshy- white all over, except along the lateral edges of the segments and round the anal extremity, where the dark stain of the ooze seemed to have become more or less permanent. The thorax is also tleshy-white, but not quite so flabby, with a distinct orange band passing on each side from the wing-base to the mesocoxa. The head is whitish behind, but much darker on the vertex and front, and especially on the labrum, which is a hard plate, nearly black. The eyes are quite black in front. The labium is pale glaucous-greyish, with the lateral lobes and hook brownish. Wing-cases pale greyish. Femora whitish, darker on the inner side; tibiae and tarsi fairly hard and dark. From the fact that only the front of the head and parts of the legs are hard, the rest of the insect being soft and flabby, it is clear that the insect usually in- habits the soft mud, and uses its head and legs to push itself along, and to scoop out new channels and passages in the soft ooze.
We now continued our investigation by slicing out the clump A, in a direction perpendicular to the plane of the diagram. In this way we dug out a space of six feet by three feet, including the whole of C and the adjoining side of the two clumps A and B. At the further end of C, we dug out one clump of sedge-roots containing a distinctly marked passage, from which we secured a fine larva, nearly full-fed. This was the only larva we found actually in a channel, but in most cases it was impossible to dig without stirring up the mud, and disturbing everything completely. The whole space was dug out to a depth of nearly three feet, and the mud and roots carefully dredged with the net. In all, we
90 LIFE-HISTORIES OF AUSTRALIAN ODONATA, iv ,
secured seven larvae, ranging from about lialf-grown to nearly full-fed. Two of these were exceedingly weak and flabby, and died soon afterwards. On examining them, I found the whole abdomen hollow, and, in one case, the alimentary canal practically destroyed : but I was unable to find the parasite that caused this, if such were the case.
After three and a half hours' work, we finished up at the part of B opposite to A in the diagram, where we found passages opening both on the top of B (bj, in diagram) and at its side, below the water-level (bo). These were also ex- plored as far as possible, and the last larva was taken about a foot below the entrance of bo.
For examination, two larvae were taken, and killed. The gizzards of these were cut out, and carefully examined. Firstly, as to contents, — the only definitely recognisable por tion of the food, which had not been triturated, was, in each case, an Agrionid labium, which I had no difficulty in recog- nising as that of A rgiolestes gj-isea Selys. The larvae of this little dragonfly are very common in these swamps, but not easy to obtain with a dredging-net. They cling to the matted outcrop of fine roots at the sides of the depressions in the swamps. In the diagram, the letters Y indicate the probable spots where the larva would occur. (None were actually found in C, but they are small and inert, and we were not looking for them; I have always taken them in positions akin to Y). This seems to suggest that the Petalura larvae use the channels, such as a 5 and bo, for obtaining a supply of this Agrionid larva for food. However, if that be the case, it further sviggests that they are nocturnal feeders ; for they are so clumsy and slow-moving that they would have no chance of capturing the Argiolestes larvae in the day- time. The latter, though by no means active, are fairly quick at dodging out of sight, behind the matted roots. It seems to me, therefore, that the Petalura larvae must possess a distinct advantage over them, viz., a better power of nocturnal vision. That is probably the case. It also sug-
BY n. J. TILLYARD. 91
gests that, during the whole of the day, they must remain in the dark, horizontal mud-channels, or low down in the vertical channels — a conclusion which is justified by the positions in which we actually found them.
What then is the value of the more numerous channels, such as a^, Uo, and bi, opening at the tops of the clumps I These are used for the final emergence. But, as they were found in good condition on November 5th, before any of the larvae had emerged, they must have other uses. I think it possible that the larva may undergo each ecdysis above ground, probably during the night-time. It is also very likely that they come up these channels each night, and wander about looking for food.
The only other larvae found, while searching for Petalura, were five larvae of Synthemis macrostigma, two small and three nearly full-fed. These lie, just covered, in the mud of the depressions. The letters X in the diagram indicate the position. It is doubtful whether the Fetalura larvae ever capture them, except when they are very young. Had either of those I examined been feeding on them, the labium of Synthemis could not fail to have appeared in its gizzard.
Structure of the teeth in the gizzard. — The second point, and by far the most important, is the arrangement of- the chitinous teeth in the Petalurine gizzard. Although nearly all the larvae taken, appeared to be very ill-nourished and flabby, yet in both the specimens examined (I selected the two healthiest) the stomach and gizzard were very large. The latter was qviite 4 mm. long, of the usual bottle-shape, the neck being about 1 mm. in diameter, and the anal end quite 3 mm. This, when carefully cleaned, cut and spread out flat on a slide, stretched out into a thin, transparent mem- brane in the shape of a trapezium with a base of 10 mm., top 4 mm., and slant sides 10 mm., and convexly curved. No sign of teeth could be observed, either with the naked eye or with an ordinary pocket lens. Under a magnification of 25 diameters, the teeth appeared, close up to the neck of the
92 LIFE-HISTORIES OF AUSTRALIAN ODONATA, iv.,
gizzard, and very minute. They are arranged radially in eight sets, each set containing from one to six teeth, two being by far the commonest number. The two gizzards shewed remarkable variation, as may be seen by comparing the figures (Figs. 2-3). In No. 1, the arrangement was 2, 2, 2, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2. In No. 2, 4, 1, 6, 4, 2, 2, 2, 2. Clearly the number 6 is abnormal. Where more than one tooth ap- peared in a set, the arrangement showed a distinct begin- ning of longitudinal chitinisation ; e.g., in every case except one (the sixth set of No. 2), the second tooth of a set of two is placed under the first, not alongside it. In the two sets of four, found in gizzard No. 2, this tendency is also shewn, for, in one case, the four teeth are arranged longitudinally ; and, in the other, the top pair only are on the same level. In the figures, the teeth are drawn disprojaortionately large, about four times their actual size when enlarged. Their actual measurements range from 002 to 0-05 mm.
This simple formation of the teeth in the gizzard of Petalura, is of great phylogenetic interest and importance. The gizzards of the larvse of all the more specialised Anisoj)tera possess only four sets of teeth ; each set being developed on an elongated oval layer of chitin, and the whole set being spoken of as a "fold" or "field." In Fetalura, we have no actual chitinised fields, but only a slight development of chitin round each tooth. This formation can be easily understood from the enlarged diagrams of some of the separate sets of teeth in gizzard No. 2. From this we are able to conclude that the four fields of the more special- ised Anisojjtera have been formed by the merging, in pairs, of eight simpler fields : that the teeth were developed as chitinous protuberances, on the gizzard wall itself ; and that the chitinous oval field was formed later on by the extension of the chitin at the base of each tooth, so as to include finally the whole set of teeth. In the Petalura gizzard we can see the beginning of the formation of a chitinous field, if we look at the enlarged figures of the teeth of the seventh and
BY R. J. TILLYARD. 93
eight set (Fig. 4). Here the chitin surrounds both the teeth in the set.
The tendency, shewn especially in gizzard No. 2, to form a longitudinal set of teeth, is of great interest. Amongst Aniso'ptera, the longitudinal field, containing a large number of nearly equal teeth, is a characteristic of the Gom/plnnft. only. In this respect, then, we may regard Petalura as shewing a connection with some distant ancestor of the Gojiiphituv. But the difference between the two forms of gizzard is far moi'e striking than this slight similarity, and strongly bears out the claim that the Petdhirino' should be regarded either as a very detached subfamily, or possibly be raised to the dignity of a family.
In a kindly criticism of my former paper on the Fetahira exuviae. Dr. Ris pointed out to me that there was nothing remarkable about the position of the involucre of the inferior appendage in the male I'etdlura nymph, as it is interpreted by morphologists to be part of the tergite of the eleventh abdominal segment in A iiisopfcra. Hence it should be found above the anal opening, and not below^ it ; and this is actually the case. As the two involucres of the superior appendages are also morphologically portions of the eleventh tergite, there is nothing really remarkable in the inferior involucre appearing above and between them. He also pointed out to me that I missed a point of great interest, in not studying closely the anal end of the Fetahira nymph ; for the three caudal spines usually conspicuous in nymphs of Animptera, are here reduced to small plates, which together form a fairly distinct and compact eleventh segment. In Fig. 6 of the Plate in my former paper (These Proceedings, 1909, PI. xxiv.) their position is not well shewn. It woiild be better to examine the anal end of a female larva, in which the involucres of the imaginal appendages take up much less room than in the male. Such a sketch, shewing the ivide- open anal opening, with the three plates completely enclos- ing it (f)ne superior and tiro inferior, corresponding to the
94 LIFE-HISTORIES OF AUSTRALIAN ODONATA, iv.,
three caudal spines in other A nisojjfera larv?e) is now given (Fig.6).
The question as to whether this larva is aquatic or air- breathing, is one of some difficulty. With several of the larvae which 1 obtained at Medlow, I tried the following ex- periments : —
(1) They were placed in a large bottle of pure water. Those which were only about half -grown, crawled about on the bottom ; but the two that were nearly full-fed, rose with the tip of their abdomens uppermost, and remained with it just on the surface of the water, but not pushed through into the air. I noticed particularly that the water-film covered the anal opening, and that they drew water in and out when breathing. This suggests that they preferred the best aerated water to breathe in.
(2) The larvae were all taken out of the water, and placed in a box. Here they appeared very uncomfortable, and soon became very inert.
(3) They were next placed in a tin, in about an inch of ooze from the swamp. This seemed to suit them fairly well. They moved about somewhat quickly, breathing in large quantities of the thick mud anally, and then expelling it with such force, that I could follow the stream of particles for several inches. I noticed, in particular, that they do not use this strong anal expulsion as a means of locomotion, in the manner of the Aeschnid lai'vae. Even when at rest, the force of expulsion was very great. This suggests that their usual method of breathing is by taking in the muddy water through the anal opening, and then, having extracted the oxygen from solution, the particles of mud are expelled with great force.
A further point of interest is, to determine what means the larva possesses of filtering the muddy water which it draws in so vigorously. If the three caudal plates that sur- round the anal opening be carefully ojDened out (as in Fig.6) it will be seen that the sides of the superior plate, and the
BY K. J. TILLYARD. 95
underside of each of the inferior lateral ones, are fringed with stiff hairs. When the three plates are in sitti, I suppose that these hairs must, in some manner, interlace to form the necessary filter, keeping the rectum itself clear of all impuri- ties in the water. When watching the larvae breathing in muddy water, I noticed particularly that these plates are drawn so closely together as to make the anal end appear almost closed during inspirdfion , yet, during exjnration, the rectum is wide o-pen, just as wc find it in the exuviae. This seems to suggest that the full-fed larva, when about to emerge, and as soon as it has climbed above the water-level, keeps its rectum open for the purpose of air-hreathinri . If this be the case. Dr. Ris' conjecture that the larva is an air- breather, is seen to have some foundation in fact, but the statement needs to be modified, viz., the larvae are only air- hreathers when above water-level. I must confess that I fully expected the larvae, when placed in muddy v/ater, to push their anal ends up into the air to breathe, and I was rather sm-prised to find that they preferred the muddy water to anything else. Still, a little reflection will show that, even if they keej) their channels of communication fairly open and clean, yet these flimsy strictures must often collapse, and during periods of heavy rain it m.ust be quite impossible for the soft, horizontal portions to hold together. I conclude, therefore, that the larva do iisiially breathe muddy water, which is filtered as described above, and that only on special occasions, namely, when foraging above water-level, or during the final ecdysis, do they breathe air.
There is one more point of interest to determine. Do the larvae take more than one year to reach maturity ? As far as I know, practically all the imagines emerge in a period cover- ins about the latter fortnig^ht of November. Now, of the seven larvae taken at Medlow, three were practically full-fed, with wing-cases of greater or less size ; but the other four were considerably smaller, only, one might say, about half-grown, and shewing as yet no trace of wing-cases. It seems, there-
96 LIFE-HISTORIES OF AUSTRALIAN ODONATA. iv.
fore, probable (though not absolutely proved, for these smaller larvae might be capable of extremely rapid develop- ment) that the imago emerges in the second year from the laying of the egg.
I have not given a drawing of the mature larva, since the drawing of the exuviae*, in my former paper, gives a fairly good representation of it. The main difference is, that the living larva appears slightly shorter and thicker, and the wing-cases are, of course, placed much more flatly along the abdomen, the hind-wing a! most completely covering both the fore-wing, and the first four abdominal segments. In con- clusion, I should like to express my very sincere thanks to Mr. C. Gibbons, who so kindly accompanied me on my ex- pedition to Medlow, and by whose help this most interesting larva was discovered.
EXPLANATION OF PLATE VII.
Fig. L — Diagrammatic section of portion of swamp at Medlow, Blue Mountaics, N. S. Wale.s (scale jh), showing : — A, B, clumps of sedge; C depression or water-hole; Ej, a^, ag, bj, bo, openings of Petalura channels; X, X positions of larvse of Synthemis macros- tigma ; Y, Y positions of larvie of Argiolestes grisea.
Fig. 2, — Teeth of gizzard of Petalura gigaiUea larva (No. 1) (mucli enlarged).
Fig. 3. — Teeth of g\zza.vd oi peta/tira gigantea laivsiCNo. 2) (much enlarged).
Fig.4. — a, h, c, Teeth of the fifth, sixth and eighth fields of No.2 gizzard, still further enlarged to show chitinisation of fields around teeth.
rig.5. — End of abdomen of female larva of P. gigantea. R, rectum — I, I, involucres of imaginal appendages.
Fig. 6. — Ditto, with the three caudal plates spread open, showing fringe of hairs.
* These. I'roceefliiigs, 1909, pi. .\xiv.
97
THE ROLE OF NITROGEN IN PLANT-METABOLISM.
Part iii. — The Distribution of Nitrogen in Acacia Seeds.
By James M. Petrie, D.Sc, F.I.C, Linnean-Macleay Fellow of the Society in Bio-Chemistry.
(From the Phi/siolof/ical Laboratory nf the University of
Sydney.)
As a large stock of the seeds of Acacia injcnantha was made available to the writer some time ago, the opportunity was taken to make an experimental stvxdy of the protei-is and other nitrogen compounds contained in them. The seeds were in a mature condition and had been kept about two years in stock.
Preliminary E xaminatioii . — For the purpose of analysis, a quantity of the seeds, w'th their tightly adhering black tests left on, was crushed as finely as possible in a small mill. A portion was dried at 100° C, to ascertain the amount of moisture ; the residue was incinerated and the weight of the ash noted. In another portion, the nitrogen was estimated by Kjeldahl's method. As it would be a matter of very great difficulty to separate the different parts of these seeds mechanically, it was expected that a number of different proteins would be dissolved together in the extracts. The greater part would represent the reserve proteins of the seed ; and a smaller amount would be extracted from the proto- plasm of the embryonic tissues.
98 THE ROLE OF NITROGEN IN PLANT-METABOLISM, iii.,
A quantity of the finely powdered seeds was first extracted with distilled water, until very little more was dissolved. The extract was filtered clear, and the insoluble residue then further extracted as completely as possible with a 10% solution of sodium chloride. The residue obtained after filtration was next treated with alcohol of 80% strength, the alcoholic extract was filtered, and the residue then examined.
A considerable amovmt of nitrogen still remained in the insoluble residue of seedmeal after all these solvents had been used. The nature of this nitrogen is still unknown, al- though it most likely occurs in the form of protein also. The fact that, when the residue is dried and ground still finer, more protein is extracted, shows that some cells had resisted disintegration and still enclosed part of the protein. There is no doubt that tannins take an important part by com- bining with the protein, and forming an insoluble compound, for tannins are found in considerable quantities in the skins of Acacia seeds. Part of the nitrogen in the residue can be removed as protein by dilute alkalies and acids ; but it is known, however, that these solvents alter the chemical nature of the proteins by combining with them, and that the original protein cannot again be restored. These reagents were, therefore, not applied in this case.
The distilled water and salt-extracts were each measured. One portion of each was used for the estimation of the total amount of nitrogen, and in another portion the proteins were precipitated by tannic acid ; the tannic precipitates were dropped into a flask, and the nitrogen determined by Kjeldahl's method as protein-nitrogen. The results of these determinations are stated in the following table: —
Table i. — Acacia Seeds.
Water driven ofiF at 100°C 11-58%
Ash 3-34
Organic constituents (by difference) 8508
100 000
BY JAMES M. PETRIE.
99
NITROGEN IN THE VARIOUS EXTRACTS.
|
in 100 gms. seeds |
% of total nitrogen |
|
|
Total nitrogen in the seeds |
4-51 % |
100 |
|
Protein N soluble in water |
1-20 0-60 000 0-68 2 03 |
26-6 |
|
insol. in water, sol. in 10% salt |
13-3 |
|
|
sol. in alcohol 80% |
0 0 |
|
|
insol. in water and salt— unextracted... N of other forms sol. in water, not pptd. by ^.»n:;In |
151 450 |
|
It is noteworthy that a comparatively large amount of the protein is dissolved out by water alone. According to Osborne, it may contain proteoses, albumins, and globulins. From the amount of ash present, it is apparent that the addition of distilled water to the seeds is equivalent to a dilute saline solution, so that more than the real water- soluble proteins is obtained in the extract.
The alcoholic extract was treated with ether, but no pre- cipitation followed, showing the entire absence of alcohol- soluble proteins.
It was observed that the clear saline extracts, after stand- ing for some time, increased in acidity, and gradually de- posited part of the proteins in an insoluble form. This appears to be caused by the combination of the acid and protein, forming an insoluble salt.
Osborne* has shown that a large number of proteins in plants possess more pronounced basic properties than acidic. They can easily form salts with the organic acids of the extracts. The salt-extracts were all found to be distinctly acid to litmus, and much more acid in reaction towards phenolphthalein. Now these insoluble salts of protein, formed during the extraction, may be redissolved by careful titration with sodium hydroxide, to the phenolphthalein neutral point. We then obtain the sodium salt of the organic acid, and the protein is set free in a form soluble in the saline solution. This, by the careful titration of the salt-extracts
(*) Journ. Amer. Chem. Soc. 1902, p. 39,
100 THK ROLE OF NITROGEN IN PLANT-METABOLISM, iii.,
containing protein in suspension, much of the latter may be redissolved, and still any increase in the concentration of hydroxyl ions is avoided. This in no way resembles the con- ditions of extraction by dilute alkalies.
The following comparative tests were made on the solu- bility of the seed-proteins in various concentrations of sodium chloride, sodium hydroxide, and the two together.
Method. — Two grammes of finely-powdered seeds were ex- tracted, for 24 hours, with the solvents stated in Table ii., and frequently shaken. All the extracts reacted acid to phenolphthalein, but alkaline to litmus. An equal volume of each clear filtered extract was then transferred to a centrifuge tube, and precipitated by the addition of 6 drops of salicyl- sulphonic acid. After spinning, the supernatant fluids were decanted, and the deposits were washed free from acid (neutral to phenolphthalein).
To each tube was then added 20 cc. of 1% saline solution, and the opalescent fluids titrated with sodium hydroxide. After titration, each was transferred to a Kjeldahl flask, and this nitrogen determined. The results are given in the table below : —
Tablk ii.
|
No. |
Solvent |
Titration N NaOH |
N |
|||
|
NaOH |
NaCl |
nrs^ iif*'-'>i |
||||
|
1 |
0-1°/ |
11 cc. |
7-8 cc. |
|||
|
2 3 |
0 |
2 |
28 11 |
8-0 |
||
|
u |
1 |
1% |
||||
|
4 |
0 |
2 |
1 |
18 |
91 |
|
|
5 |
0 |
1 |
2 |
11 |
9 0 |
|
|
6 |
0 |
2 |
2 |
14 |
9-5 |
|
|
7 |
0 |
1 |
5 |
15 |
10-8 |
|
|
8 |
0 |
V) |
5 |
14 |
lOO |
|
|
9 |
0 |
1 |
7 |
14 |
10-4 |
|
|
10 |
0 |
2 |
/ |
15 |
9-5 |
|
|
11 |
0 |
1 |
10 |
14 |
9-9 |
|
|
12 13 |
0-2 |
lU |
14 4 |
lost 5-2 |
||
|
1 |
||||||
|
14 |
5 |
4 |
7-0 |
|||
|
15 i |
10 |
4 |
7-9 |
_ |
BY JAMES M. PETRIE.
101
Nos. 13, 14 and 15 show the relative amounts dissolved by salt alone, of which 10% is the best solvent. Almost the same amount of protein is dissolved by 10% salt as by 01%alkali. The partially neutralised extracts in the whole series, from 1% to 10%, contain more than the salt extracts alone. The maximum protein is obtained in No. 2, by using 0-2% alkali alone.
Preparation of Solutions for Analysis. — Since little is to be gained by first extracting, with water, those proteins which are also soluble in salt-solutions, the extracts were always made by adding sodium chloride solution directly to the powdered seeds.
By extracting 20 gms. of seeds with 1 litre of 10% sodium chloride solution for 1 day, an extract was obtained in which the protein-content was determined by precipitation with tannic acid, and the estimation of nitrogen in the precipitate. The residue of seeds was again extracted with a second litre of salt-solution, and the amount of protein-nitrogen esti- mated as before. By successive treatments in this way, until no protein was contained in the final solution, the maximum quantity of protein cajoable of being extracted by sodium chloride solution was ascertained. The results were ii3 follows: —
Ist Extraction yielded 76 % of the whole extractable protein.
|
2na |
14 |
|||
|
3rd |
6 |
|||
|
4tli |
2 |
|||
|
Otll |
1 |
|||
|
6tli |
0-6 |
|||
|
7tli |
()-3 |
In consequence of the above, the numerous single extracts made for various experiments, give results which are not comparable with one another.
In order to study the behaviour of these proteins towards the different reagents, an extract was made from 100 gms. of
102
THE ROLE OF NITROGEN IN PLANT-METABOLISM, 111.,
seeds in 10% sodivim chloride solution, which contained 3-Oi) gms. of nitrogen.
(a) To 50 CO. of the extract, were added 10 drops of a 2% solution of acetic acid, then heated to boiling in the water- bath for some time. The coagulated protein was filtered ; the filtrate was boiled for some time longer, and the small amount of precipitate obtained was added to the first. The coagulum, after washing with hot water, was Kjeldahled for nitrogen. The filtrate from the coagulated protein showed no biuret reaction, indicating absence of peptones. On titrating with alkali till neutral to phenolphthalein, no pre- cipitate was observed.
(b) Fifty cc. of the extract were precipitated by a 5%