KOTES AND MEMORANDA. 161 



Chlorophyll. — M. Timiriaseff, in the Keport before referred to of 

 the International Congress of Botanists at Amsterdam, after some re- 

 flections on the various methods proposed for treating chlorophyll 

 chemically, states that it is composed of two substances, the one 

 yellow, xanthophyil ; the other green, the cyanophyll of M. KJraus, 

 which he pro^wses to call chlorophylline. This latter, spontaneously 

 decomposing, produces chlorophy Heine. Chlorophylline may again be 

 decomposed under the influence of light or mineral acids, and changed 

 into what M. Fremy calls phylloxanthine. Chloroj)hylleine in de- 

 composing gives phylloxanthine.* 



Professor Haberlandt considers that the chlorophyll in the coty- 

 ledons of Phasiolus vulgaris is formed from starch. The starch 

 granules ai-e gradually surrounded with a layer of protoplasm, which 

 is at first colourless, but gradually turns green, while the starch 

 grains disappear.f 



Function of Chlorophyll in the green Planariae. — Although 

 the presence of cblorophyll has long been recognized in the tissues of 

 a considerable number of Invertebrata, no reply has yet been given 

 to the fundamental question whether it has the same function in the 

 animal kingdom as in the vegetable. Can these animals effect the 

 decomposition of carbonic acid under the influence of solar light with 

 assimilation of the carbon and disengagement of the oxygen ? 



M. P. Geddes J has experimented on this subject at M. Lacaze- 

 Duthiers' Laboratory of Experimental Zoology at Eoscoff, where a 

 species of green Planaria was found in great abimdance, which had 

 the habit of seeking and exposing itself to the light like Hydra viridis. 

 They were generally found in the white sand in only a few centi- 

 metres of water. Placed in a small aquarium, they always sought 

 the side of the light, and when the aquarium was exposed to the sun 

 their movements were much accelerated. After some minutes bubbles 

 of gas, small at first, showed themselves here and there, augmenting in 

 number and volume with astonishing rapidity, equal to that of a green 

 alga under similar cii'cumstances. 



The gas can be easily collected by placing the animals in a saucer, 

 covered by another rather smaller tm-ned upside down under the 

 water. At the end of the day the volume of gas is sufficient to fill a 

 small test-tube. If into this tube is plunged a nearly extinguished 

 match, the white incandescence is produced characteristic of diluted 

 oxygen. Ten or twelve of these tubes will collect enough gas to fill 

 the long branch of the bent tube used for approximate analyses. 

 Agitation with the potash solution shows only a trace of carbonic 

 acid, but with the addition of pyrogallic acid the presence of oxygen 

 is completely confirmed by the deep brown colour, and by the ascent 

 of the liquid in the tube. 



A series of tests gave 43 to 52 per cent, of oxygen. A similar 

 analysis of atmospheric air, undertaken to ascertain the proportion 



* ' Bull. Soc. But. cle France,' vol. sxv. (1878) p. 129. 

 t 'Monthly Jour, of Science,' .Snl scr., vol. i. (Ib79) p, 204. 

 X ' Comptes Rendus,' vol. Ixxxvii. (1878) p. 1095. 

 VOL. II. M 



