PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION K. 721 



marsupials in general. Practically every marsupial tliat I have 

 examined, whether dead or alive, some of the latter in quite good 

 health, presented these bodies in their erythrocytes in greater or 

 fewer numbers. They appear to have no influence upon the well- 

 being of their host, although it is quite reasonable to expect that 

 in ill-health their numbers in the circulating blood might be 

 increased. Inoculation of the blood into animals of like species 

 in order to demonstrate whether the bodies are transmissible or 

 not, is therefore quite out of the question. The bodies are also 

 present in animals that have been born in captivity, and even in 

 very immature pouch young also born in captivity. There is 

 considerable variation in the size of the bodies in the marsupials, 

 much greater than is seen in other animals, although this alone 

 is recognised as no evidence of their non-parasitic nature. 



The marsupials represent a very early type of mammal, and 

 it is possible that in them we have furnished a link in the gap 

 between the vertebrates with nucleated, and those with non- , 

 nucleated red corpuscles ? In the marsupials, the evidence ap- 

 pears to show that remnants of some of the nuclei of the red cells, 

 instead of disappearing from the general circulation in late foetal 

 life, as in most of the higher mammals, tend to persist in the 

 form of small spherical fragments throughout the existence of 

 the animal. 



The Lemurs. 



It was partly on account of the presence of chromatin bodies 

 in the erythrocytes of five lemurs dead within a few weeks of each 

 other, that it appeared at first that in these animals at least thq^ 

 bodies might be protozoa, and perhaps primarily responsible for 

 a fatal illness. All these species of lemur are natives of Mada- 

 gascar, and the thought arose that the bodies present in these 

 animals might really be anaplasms; but examination of the blood 

 of the living, and, except in one case, healthy lemurs, caused 

 this tentative opinion to be abandoned. For in all cases of the 

 latter, chromatin bodies were present in the red corpuscles in 

 greater or fewer numbers, in some instances being so scarce as 

 to need prolonged search of the slide. These bodies were also 

 found to be present in animals that had been born in the Zoo- 

 logical gardens, and kept in cages all their lives. Then the ques- 

 tion arises whether, if these chromatin bodies in the red corpuscles 

 of lemurs are not parasitic, they are to be considered normal to 

 the blood of these animals, just as are probably those of the mar- 

 supials, seeing that they were present in the blood of every lemur 

 examined (twelve in all). 



The lemuroidse are much more advanced in the zoological scale 

 than the marsupials, and, until more animals have been examined, 

 I do not feel justified in drawing the same conclusions as I have 



