172 Mr. P. H. Gosse on the Chylaqueous Fluid in the Actinoida. 



XVIII. — On the Chylaqueous Fluid in the Actinoida. 

 By P. H. Gosse, F.R.S. 



To the Editors of the Annals of Natural History. 



Sandhurst, Torquay, Feb. 12, 1868. 

 Gentlemen, 



In the 'Sea-side Studies' of Mr. G. H. Lewes, the statement 

 is made, as the result of careful experiments, that the Sea- 

 Anemones are totally destitute of any organized fluid answering 

 to blood. His declarations on this head are full and clear. 

 " This animal is not only without ' blood,' in any proper sense 

 of the term, but also without that simpler form of blood named 

 ' chylaqueous fluid' by Dr. Williams and succeeding writers." 

 " No such fluid circulates in the Actiniae, — an assertion which 

 can readily be tested. The water is easily forced out of the 

 tentacles, or collected by cutting open the Actinise in a glass. 

 Evaporate it, and you will find it to be sea-water holding some- 

 times organic particles in solution. Test it with concentrated 

 nitric acid, and instead of becoming turbid, as it would if it 

 contained albumen in solution, it remains unaltered, except that 

 when organic particles are present, they become distinct. Ex- 

 amine the fluid with the microscope, and you will find animal- 

 culae and various particles, but nothing like definite corpuscles, 

 such as are visible in the true chylaqueous fluid. It is, in short, 

 sea-water, and nothing more*." 



Doubting his own correctness, Mr. Lewes had recourse to 

 Mr. R. Q. Couch, who undertook to repeat the investigation. 

 The latter gentleman, with a power of 300 linear, examined, on 

 repeated occasions, specimens of Actinia mesembryanthemum ] 

 but could discover in their contained fluid " nothing organic ; 

 and [except in one instance] it gave no cloudiness by nitric 

 acid." The exception is, that in one case the water from the 

 tentacles, when treated with nitric acid, "had a slight opalescent 

 deposit, or rather, a difiiised milky cloud of very slight charac- 

 ter." This occurrence did not prevent Mr. Couch from regard- 

 ing " this fluid as merely sea-water, free from every admixture 

 of secreted matter." And a similar occurrence of the slight 

 milky cloud, once, and only once, in Mr. Lewes's observations, 

 he notices, as " showing that it arose from an accidental, not a 

 constant element f." 



Mr. Lewes rightly presumes that his physiological readers 

 will receive this statement " with surprise," and that it will even 

 " startle" them. It so far surprised me, that I at once set about 



* Sea-side Studies, p. 257- 

 t Op. cit. pp. 257, 268. 



