400 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
of nitric acid to the solution, which turns yellow on 
boiling and, after cooling, becomes orange on the addition 
of ammonia). Millon’s reagent, when added to the 
original solution, gave a white precipitate, turning brick 
red on boiling. The Biuret test also indicated proteid. 
The concentrated solution is coagulated on heating. The 
proteid as shown by Mitra belongs to the Globulin 
class. 
With regard to the physiological properties of the 
style, the following must be noted. It disappears when 
the animals are kept in sea water free from nutriment of 
any kind. This has been shown to be also the case in 
Anodon. After transit Mitra found that fifty might be 
opened without showing any trace of the style, whereas 
if placed in a fresh-water aquarium with plenty of food, 
it was invariably present after an interval of a few hours. 
Mitra also states that his mussels were not able to carry 
on respiration and nutrition actively during the night, 
owing to a leakage in the tank containing them, with the 
result that the style was absent when mussels were 
examined at eight o’clock in the morning, and the 
digestive function was also in abeyance. 
Two or three hours afterwards the style would be 
present. In the case of Pecten such rapid alterations 
were not found, but specimens kept in a tank which was 
simply aerated by an air current, and in water which was 
practically free from food matter, were always found to 
be without the styles. 
It seems that the presence of the crystalline style is 
concerned with digestion, and it is interesting therefore 
to find that it contains a digestive ferment. 
To test the action a solution of several styles was 
made up and allowed to act on a starch solution for some 
hours, precautions having been taken, as a control, to 
