276 Mary Davies Swarlz, 



kept at a temperature of 40^ C, did not entirely disappear from the 

 solution before the ninth or tenth day. Two widely distributed fer- 

 menting agents acting on hemicellulose {Bacillus asterosporus Arth. 

 Meyer, and Bacillus clostridiejornie, Burri and Anker smit), studied b)' 

 Ankersmit (89), are said by him to occur in insufficient numbers to 

 make their activity of any significance in the alimentary canal of the 

 cow. 



PENTOSANASES IN LOWER ANIMALS. 



Extensive investigations regarding the occurrence of pentosan- 

 splitting enzymes in lower animals, have been made by Selliere since 

 1905. The secretion of the hepato-pancreas of the common snail 

 {Helix pomatia) not only digests cellulose in vilro,^ but also xylan, ac- 

 cording to this writer (148). In feeding experiments, analyses of the 

 food (oak wood) and excreta of these xylophages showed a higher per- 

 centage of xylan in the former than in the latter (149). Hence xylan 

 must have been digested. In 1907, he showed that pentoses were 

 actually liberated and absorbed, by testing the blood of these snails, 

 which gave the phloroglucin reaction (151). That sugar can be found 

 in their blood is denied by Couvreur and Bellion (99), but this Selliere 

 attributes to the fact that the sugar content is much less than in 

 higher animals, and hence has been entirely overlooked. 



Xylanase also occurs in other species of snail (150) such as Helix 

 aspera Miilh, Helix nemoralis L., Liniax arborum Boiich., Limax 

 variegatus Drap., Arion rufus L., Patella vidgata L., Littorina lit'orea L., 

 Littorina littoralis L., and in a representative of the Coleoptera, Phy- 

 matodes variabilis L. The presence of a xylanase in Patella vulgata 

 and the Littorinae is especially significant, as their food consists in 

 pento=an-rich algae. Selliere (150) and Pacault (130) have independ- 

 ently discovered a xylanase in the salivary glands of Helix pomatia. 

 According to Rohmann(134), Aplysia, which subsist largely upon 

 Ulva lactuca, do not, digest the soluble methyl-pentosan {rhamnosan) 

 present in this alga. He finds this carbohydrate present in the glands 

 of the midgut, but regards it as a food residue. 



PENTOSANASES IN HIGHER ANIMALS. 



There have been only a few investigations as to the presence in 

 higher animals of enzymes hydrolyzing pentosans. Slowtzoff (154) 



^Cf. Biedermann and Moritz (34). 



