NOTES ON THE CHROMATOLOGY OF ANTHEA OEREUS. 57 7 



The Chemical Proof is no less convincing, as the presence 

 of starch within the '' yellow cells/' and of a cellulose wall 

 surrounding them^ is easily proved, especially after, as Geddes 

 has shown, the usual botanical precautions have been taken, 

 namely, steeping the " yellow cells " in alcohol, then in caustic 

 potash, and neutralising with acetic acid before applying the 

 tests with iodine and with Schulze's fluid. The same tests 

 applied to liver chlorophyll entirely fail. 



It is not necessary here to describe the differences between 

 the ''yellow cells" and the chlorophyll corpuscles of Hydra 

 and Sp on gill a, as Professor Lankester^ has shown that the 

 latter are not parasitic algse, and I have^ lately studied the 

 chlorophyll corpuscles of Stentor polymorphus, Para- 

 raoecium, and Ophrydium, and compared their morphological 

 characters with those of the ''yellow cells," and have concluded 

 that they too are not parasitic algse, although in some corpuscles 

 I have found traces of an amyloid substance, and the presence 

 of a cellulose wall. Miss Jessie Sallitt^ has also studied the 

 morphology of the chlorophyll corpuscles of certain Infu- 

 sorians, but she has not found starch. This, however, 

 is of no importance, for there is no reason why starch 

 should not appear in the protoplasmic contents of an animal 

 chlorophyll corpuscle containing chlorophyll. Nor would the 

 absence of starch within such cells justify us in concluding 

 that it is not formed there, as it may be, and probably is, 

 rapidly removed elsewhere as soon as it is formed (Lankester). 

 Granting that starch is built up by the agency of chlorophyll 

 from carbon dioxide and water, we may not always meet with 

 it, for botanists teach that some " non-nitrogenous^ organic 

 substance is first formed in the chlorophyll corpuscle from 

 carbon dioxide and water," which is " not starch, but a sub- 



' " On the ChlorophjU Corpuscles and Amyloid deposits of Spongilla and 

 Hydra," ' Quart. Jouru, Mic. Sci.,' vol. xxii, N.S., p, 229. 



- ' Proc. Birm. Philos. Soc.,' vol. v, Part I, pp. 177— 218. 



^ " On the Chlorophyll Corpuscles of some Infusoria," ' Quart. Journ. Mic. 

 Sci.,' vol. xxiv, ISSi. 



* Vines, 'Lectures on the Physiology of Plants,' 1886, p. 145. 



