NATURE 



[May 12, 192 1 



that of a vertebrate) and a few water-fleas the only 

 members possessing even a trace of haemoglobin, 

 excepting one marine fish-parasite- (Lernanthropus)? 



(6) The only common feature in the "conditions of 

 life " or environment of these exceptional cases of 

 the presence of haemoglobin is that some of them, 

 viz. the Planorbis snail, the larval Chironomus, and 

 the crustacean Apus, live in stagnant fresh-water, 

 even in black mud, where free oxygen is scarce owing 

 to the decomposition of vegetable debris. But in 

 what special way and to what extent is the haemo- 

 globin valuable to its possessors, seeing that other 

 closely related species are associated with them and 

 are devoid of haemoglobin ? 



(7) One more case must be noted, namely, the very 

 common presence of haemoglobin in the blood-fluid of 

 the Chaetopod worms, both marine and fresh-water, 

 whilst, nevertheless, it is absent from many. In some 

 of these worms "red blood-corpuscles" replace the 

 entire vascular system and its red fluid; they float 

 in the coelomic fluid. In one case, that of the large 

 and beautiful marine worm, Aphrodite (the " sea- 

 mouse "), whilst haemoglobin is absent from the blood, 

 it is present in such quantity in the nervous tissue of 

 the great nerve-cord as to give it a ruby-red colour. 

 It also gives a pale pink colour to the great muscular 

 pharynx. In what way does the sluggish Aphrodite 

 benefit by having its nerve-cord saturated with the 

 oxygen-seizing haemoglobin? Similarly, some few of 

 the remarkable Nemertine worms have haemoglobin in 

 the corpuscles which float in the fluid of certain 

 vessels, and others have it only in the tissue of the 

 nerve-cord and brain. 



To conclude, we might, it seems to me, arrive at 

 some better understanding of the general physiology 

 of respiration in animals were the cases I have cited 

 more accurately (I mean quantitatively) investigated ; 

 and were the strik^pg facts also held in view, that no 

 Protozoon, no Sponge, and no Coral or Polvp is 

 known to develop "haemoglobin," whilst in onlv one 

 starfish and one Holothurian (recent additions to the 

 list may have escaped my attention) has haemoglobin 

 been recorded, and that in the form of "red blood- 

 corpuscles." E. Ray Lankester. 



44 Oakley Street, Chelsea, S.W.3, May 3. 



A " New" Type of Tool of Mousterian Age. 



The object of this letter is to describe briefly a 

 hitherto unrecognised type of implement of Mousterian 

 age and to ask readers of Nature for any 

 information they can give me as to its geo- 

 graphical distribution. 



Considerable collections of flint — or, more 

 correctly, chert— implements of Palaeolithic 

 types were made bv mvself in 1914, and bv 

 _Mr. G. W. Murray', of 'the Survey of Egypt, 

 in the following years. My own specimens 

 are from the western desert, Mr. Murray's 

 from sites discovered by himself in the 

 eastern desert. Both series show a number of tor- 

 toise cores of Mousterian age — the age determined 

 not only by type, but also the discovery by myself of 

 a typical core in a hard cemented gravel recognised 

 by Dr. Hume as of Pleistocene age — which have been 

 worked up to produce a type of tool which, so far as 

 I can discover, has not been recognised previously. 

 Before describing this form of implement I must 

 point out that typically domed tortoise cores are not 

 common in Egypt ; most cores are flatter, presumably 

 because the nodules from which they were made were 

 oval rather than spherical, and are so trimmed as to 

 have, roughly, the shape of a half of a somewhat 



NO. 2689, VOL. 107] 



flattened pear, the notch indicating the point at which 

 the core is struck being situated at the broad end of 

 the pear. 



Regarding the face of the core from which a 

 Levallois flake has been struck as the upper surface, 

 the "new" tool consists in the production at the 

 narrow end of this surface of an upturned point or 

 beak. In its simplest form this is produced by the 

 meeting at the narrow end of the core of the two 

 planes (or facets) bounding the flake-bed left by the 

 removal of the Levallois flake, and of a facet con- 

 stituting a third plane, joining these at an angle, 

 produced by striking off a flake from near the point 



iii 



Fig. 



of the lower (convex) surface of the core. The 

 diagram (Fig. i, i.) will make this description clearer; 

 it will be seen that the lower part of the scar-bed of 

 the Levallois flake (F) is bounded by two narrow 

 facets (i and la) the intersection of which gives rise 

 to a crest or ridge (R). This crest and its two bound- 

 ing facets are terminated abruptly by the facet (3) 

 produced by a blow struck on the convex surface of 

 the stone. 



Fig. I, ii., is a somewhat diagrammatic rendering 

 of the side view of an implement of the type described, 

 and shows the heavy triangular point not unlike the 

 beak of a chelonian, which is characteristic of the 



