534 . REPORT— 1883. 
since oxidising and reducing agents have no effect upon it; nor is it likely that it 
can be of any use in decomposing carbon dioxide in the absence of sunlight, buried 
deeply in the body of an animal, as in the case of enterochlorophyll. Its forma- 
tion under these circumstances might be doubted, if we did not know that in the 
conifere and in ferns chlorophyll is formed in the dark. 
On the surface of an animal it may be of use in absorbing the chemically 
active rays of the spectrum, as Lommel maintains in the case of vegetable 
chlorophyll; and C. Timiriazeff (‘Compt. rend.’ xevi., 375-376) shows that 
Langley’s measurements with the bolometer prove that the poimt of maximum 
solar energy corresponds with the principal chlorophyll band between B and C. If, 
however, Pringsheim’s‘ screen’ theory be correct, this view cannot be held. It may 
be of use for protective purposes or in mimicry, although probably a pigment of less 
complicated chemical constitution might answer equally well, except that the eyes 
of some invertebrates may be more susceptible to rays of a certain wave-length 
than ours are, as Sir John Lubbock has shown to be the case in ants. 
Again chlorophyll in an animal may be merely the persistence of a colouring 
matter which was useful in a remote ancestor, at a time, perhaps, when the 
atmosphere contained more carbon dioxide than it does now. The fact that all 
flowers were at one time green, may help to throw light on this point. 
Enterochlorophyll may be of use in furnishing the material for the construction 
of chromogens or radicals for the formation of other colouring matters. 
Thus the colouring matter of ox and sheep-bile appears to have some of the 
characters of chlorophyll, although the writer has shown that it is a hemoglobin 
derivative. 
Then again the elementary composition of chlorophyll and bilirubin are almost 
the same according to Gautier and Hoppe-Seyler; and chlorophyll and reduced 
sale exist side by side in the bile of pulmonate mollusks, and in that of the 
crayfish, 
The occurrence of chlorophyll in an animal should not excite so much surprise 
when we Imow that the same proteids, the same glucosides, carbohydrates, and 
digestive ferments are found in both kingdoms of nature. Lutein too occurs in plants 
and animals, and the writer has lately found tetronerythrin in an orange flower. 
Those who maintain that chlorophyll does not exist in animals, evidently con- 
found other bodies with it, such as protoplasm; and there is no doubt that 
chlorophyll is present in animals, being synthetically built up by and in their 
bodies. 
2. On-the continuity of the Protoplasm through the Walls of Vegetable cells. 
By Water Garpiner, B.A. 
Although the great probability of a means of communication existing between 
vegetable cells had been repeatedly expressed by botanists, actual demonstrable 
instances that such was the case were but few, being in fact limited to Sach’s 
discovery with regard to sieve-tubes, and to the results obtained by Tangl with 
certain ripe endosperms. 
The author, after briefly reviewing what work had been done on the subject, 
oes on to describe in detail his own experiments with Mimosa, Robinia, Dioncea, 
and other sensitive plants, and with thickened endosperm cells in general. As the 
results depend in a great measure upon the methods employed, he describes the 
various reagents he was Jed to make use of, the modifications adopted, and the 
results obtained. 
In all the organs of movement examined the freely pitted parenchymatous cells 
were found to communicate with one another by means of delicate protoplasmic 
threads which perforated the closing membrane of the pits. 
In order to investigate instances where the thickness of the pit membrane 
would allow any threads passing across it to be easily seen, the endosperm cells of 
some fifty species of palms, together with typical representatives of some thirteen 
orders, were examined, in all of which it was ascertained that definite and well- 
pronounced continuity existed. 
