Note 78 — III. LIFE AND DEATH.

Leuckart finds such a great resemblance between the newly born young of Distoma and the Orthonectides, that he is inclined to believe that the latter are Trematodes, ‘which in spite of sexual maturity have not developed further than the embryonic condition of the Distoma’ (‘Zur Entwicklungsgeschichte des Leberegels,’ Zool. Anzeiger, 1881, No. 99). In reference to the Dicyemidae, which resemble the Orthonectides in their manner of living and in their structure, Gegenbaur has stated his opinion that they belong to a ‘stage in the development of Platyhelminthes’ (Grundriss d. vergleich. Anatomie). Giard includes both in the ‘phylum Vermes,’ and regards them as much degenerated by parasitism; and Whitman—the latest investigator of the Dicyemids—speaks of them in a similar manner in his excellent work ‘Contributions to the Life-history and Classification of Dicyemids’ (Leipzig, 1882).