Culicoides variipennis sonorensis Wirth & Jones and C. nubeculosus (Meigen) were orally infected with African horse sickness virus (AHSV) type 9 and subsequently incubated at 10, 15, 20 and 25°C (R.H. 80%±10%). A time course of infection rates and virus titres was recorded by assaying flies individually or in pools, and survival rates of flies were also estimated. Survival rates at 10, 15 and 20°C were very similar and 80–90% of flies remained alive after 14 days; at 25°C after the same period survival was reduced to 40%. None of the C. nubeculosus became persistently infected with AHSV, but the virus took longer to clear as the incubation temperature dropped. At temperatures of 10, 15, 20 and 25°C virus was undetectable on days 12, 8, 5, and 4 days post infection (dpi), respectively. In C. v. sonorensis both the infection rate and rate of virogenesis were related to temperature. At 25°C a maximum mean titre of 104.3 TCID50/fly was reached by 9 dpi and the infection rate remained between 60 and 80%. At 20°C virogenesis was slower and a maximum mean titre of 104.3 TCID50/fly was reached only after 23 days; the infection rate was also reduced to 50–70%. At 15°C there was an overall decline in virus titre with time, although between 12 and 15 dpi some pools of flies contained 103.0–104.0 TCID50/fly, demonstrating that virogenesis can occur. The infection rate at this temperature decreased dramatically to 0–15% after 9 dpi. At 10°C there was no detectable virogenesis and all pools tested at 13 dpi were negative. The apparent infection rate dropped to 0–5% between 13 and 35 days post infection. However, when surviving flies were then returned to 25 °C for 3 days the infection rate increased to 15.5%. It therefore appears that at low temperatures the virus does not replicate but infectious virus may persist at a level below that detectable by the usual assay systems. The implications of these findings for the epidemiology of AHS are discussed.

Culicoides nubeculosus, the vector of Onchocerca cervicalis, was found to have two daily peaks of activity when attacking horses in South Hertfordshire. The evening peak occurred just before sunset and was 2–2.5 times as great as the morning peak. Most of the attacking midges (85 %) landed on the ventral mid-line of the horse in an area stretching from the front legs to the sheath or mammae. The attractiveness of the ventral surface of the host was found to be related to illumination and to the arrangement of the host's body hair. 42.1 % of the C. nubeculosus landing on the host were successful in obtaining a blood meal.

Distinct morphological differences were found between microfilariae of Onchocerca cervicalis in the uterus of the adult and those in the skin of the horse, suggesting that development occurs during migration from the adult worm to the skin.

Uterine microfilariae can be divided into two types which represent stages of development not embryonic male and female worms.

Skin microfilariae of O. cervicalis were readily distinguishable from those of O. volvulus and O. gutturosa. Morphological comparisons between adult and larval O. cervicalis collected during this project with published descriptions of O. reticulata show that there is insufficient evidence for their specific separation.

The first two papers in this series have dealt with the prevalence of Onchocerca cervicalis in British horses and with the pathology caused by the parasite to the definitive host. The present paper is concerned with the morphology and taxonomy of the parasite, particularly the microfilarial stage.

Colonies of Culicoides nubeculosus and C. variipennis were established at Winches Farm Field Station, St. Albans.

Both species of midge were found to be susceptible to infection with Onchocerca cervicalis microfilariae. Infection was achieved either by engorging through a chick skin membrane on a suspension of microfilariae in blood, or by feeding upon a horse naturally infected with O. cervicalis microfilariae.

A large proportion of the microfilariae ingested by the midges penetrated into the haemocoel and migrated first to the thoracic flight muscles and then to the head. Larval development occurred during migration and 3rd stage (infective) larvae of O. cervicalis reached the head of infected midges (kept at 23°C.) 14–15 days after engorgement.

1. 903 horses were examined at 3 abattoirs in South East England. 10(22–7%) of the horses at the London Colney abattoir, 23(13–9%) of those at the Braintree abattoir, Essex, and 90(12–9%) of those at the Islington abattoir, London, were infected with O. cervicalis. All 105 horses examined in Southern Ireland were found to be negative.

2. The adult worms of O. cervicalis were found without exception, in the ligamentum nuchae of infected horses. The suspensory ligaments of the fetlock and flexor tendons were always negative.

3. The microfilariae of O. cervicalis concentrate along the abdominal mid-line of the host. In 5 complete horse hides, 95% of the microfilariae were found within 6 inches of the linea alba. The examination of 31 other horses infected with O. cervicalis confirmed this pattern of microfilarial distribution.

4. The microfilariae were concentrated along the ventral mid-line, of the host; presumably an adaption to accommodate the habits of the vector C. nubeculosus, which bites preferentially in this area.

5. Seasonal variations in the number of microfilariae in horse skin, as reported by Japanese workers, was not observed. Evidence was found, however, to suggest that the microfilariae migrate into the deeper levels of the dermis during the Winter. Histological examination of infected horse skin showed that the microfilariae have a very uneven distribution in the dermis. They congregate together in isolated “clumps” or “nests” and are frequently found in close proximity to the sweat glands or hair follicles.

The following discussion is an attempt to make an initial assessment of the value to Religious Studies of certain aspects of the social theory of Anthony Giddens. I suggest that debates centred on the nature of ‘high’ or ‘late’ modernity have substantial implications for the study of contemporary religion. The theoretical work of Giddens encourages us to reconsider the nature of ‘tradition’ as it is expressed and deployed in modern religious contexts. He notes the centrality of ‘reflexivity’ in modernity and suggests that traditions which have passed through the reflexive filterings and critical questions of modernity should be called ‘sham traditions’. In the following discussion I explore this argument, and outline the potential value of a great deal of it to the scholar of contemporary religion. Nevertheless, I also suggest that we should talk not of ‘sham’ traditions but merely of ‘reflexive’ ones. I argue that the incorporation of modern reflexivity into religious traditions does not mean that they become false representations of traditions which have, in actuality, been discarded. On the contrary, I suggest that reflexive traditions can provide new, dynamic forms for the expression and development of religion within the context of high modernity. In the course of this discussion, I hope to establish the value of the term ‘reflexive traditions’ for scholars of modern religion.

Concepts of space have been the subject of a great deal of debate in a number of areas of contemporary social theory. The work of the sociologists Erving Goffman and, more recently, Anthony Giddens have been particularly important and influential components of many of these debates. In theological discussions of space, however, many of the insights offered by the social sciences have yet to be assimilated. In the following discussion I shall suggest that there are a number of valuable elements in Goffman’s theories which might fruitfully be incorporated into theological reflection. Initially, however, I shall consider the approaches to the religious significance of space by Mathew Fox and Robin Green which are, I believe, indicative of major flaws in much contemporary Christian discussion of the subject. After discussing some limitations in these approaches, I shall briefly sketch out the basic lines of Goffman’s and Giddens’ arguments, and offer a few suggestions relating to how these theories might be of relevance to theology. Specifically, I shall draw attention to the importance of what Giddens refers to as the regionalisation of social life which is, I suggest, particularly relevant to the study of religious activity.

In a study of the religious significance of food to medieval woman, Caroline Walker Bynum argues that the ascetic practices embraced by these women are signs of a commitment to explore the religious potentialities of the body rather than being indications of a hostile attitude to the flesh. She comments that belief in the ‘salvific potential of suffering flesh (both our's and God's)’ differentiates Christianity from other world religions, since it is a ‘characteristically Christian idea that the bodily suffering of one person can be substituted for the suffering of another through prayer, purgatory, vicarious communion etc….’ In the discussion which follows I shall attempt to draw out this differentiating characteristic in a comparative study of Christian and Buddhist concepts of, and attitudes to, suffering. I shall suggest that the divergent orientations which structure the religious treatment of this issue are related not only to radically opposing conceptions of the religious ‘path’, but also to different understandings of ‘self’. Although the categories ‘self’ and ‘suffering’ are intimately related in each context, it is my contention that in the Christian context the religious meaning of life becomes apparent to the individual in so far as the content of self is defined progressively in the reflexive encounter with the ‘Other’ (God), an encounter which can be facilitated through suffering. In a Buddhist context, on the other hand, it is precisely such a reflexivity (between self and ‘others’ if not the ‘Other’) which is understood to create and reproduce both self and suffering, and from which the Buddhist desires liberation.

A set of comprehensive computer models for the chemical evolution of galaxies have been used to determine the limits on the amount of mass that could exist in the form of dark stellar remnants deriving from normal stellar evolutionary processes. In these models, the instantaneous recycling approximation is not assumed: stars are binned into 10 mass intervals, with different lifetimes, yields and remnant masses. The models were run using many different values for the IMF (including non-Salpeter and varying IMFs), star formation rates, yields, remnant masses, gas infall and outflow rates, primordial metalliciy and initial conditions. The Galaxy is described by a two-zone halo-disk system, where gas from the halo falls onto the disk. Elliptical galaxies are described by single-zone models.