1040 The American Naturalist. [December, 
case, too, that portion which was digesting at the higher tem- 
perature showed the presence of maltose first. 
The digestive process converted the starch no further than 
maltose, for even after digesting all night no test for glucose 
was obtained by Barfold’s test (acidified copper acetate solu- 
tion). 
III. Fat-Splitting Ferment. 
The presence of a fat-splitting ferment in the secretions of 
the pyloric ceeca was proved by the fact that neutral olive oil, 
after being digested in the presence of thymol for same time, 
with a fresh neutral water extract of these cæca at a tempera- 
ture of 374° C., gave a decided acid reaction with litmus paper, 
thus showing that the neutral olein had been converted into 
free fatty acid and glycerine. A control portion of olive oil 
alone, which was submitted to the same digesting process 
under the same conditions, showed no acidity at the end of 
the experiment. 
To sum up the conclusions that the results of the foregoing 
experiments seem to warrant, it seems that the pyloric ceca of 
the star-fish have no properties whatsoever—except, perhaps, 
their size and possibly color—which entitle them to a com- 
parison with the liver of higher animals. On the contrary, 
however, they may be said to be closely related to the pan- 
creas of the higher animals. Their secretion is abundant and 
contains three ferments :—— 
1. A Proteolytic ferment comparable to trypsin which acts 
best in a slightly alkaline medium, to good advantage in a 
neutral solution, but scarcely at all in an acid medium; con- 
verting proteids into diffusible peptones and breaking down 
some of these even further into amido acids, as leucine and 
tyrosine. 
II. A Diastatic ferment comparable to the diastatic enzyme 
of the pancreas which acts quite rapidly upon starch, convert- 
ing it through the dextrines into maltose. 
II. A Fat-splitting ferment comparable to that of the pan- 
creas which breaks fats into their fatty acids and glycerine. 
Upon these few but important and well-established facts it 
seems necessary, then, to abandon the old ground of charac- 
