256 A. LIVERSIDGE. 



The BLUE PIGMENT in CORAL (HELIOPORA C(ERULEA) 

 and other ANIMAL ORGANISMS. 



By A. LlVERSIDGE, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S., 



Professor of Chemistry in the University of Sydney. 



[Read before the Royal Society of N. 8. Wales, December 7, 1898.'] 



The following notes contain the results of some preliminary 

 experiments upon the blue pigment present in the blue coral 

 known as Heliopora coerulea. Some fragments of the coral were 

 supplied to me by Professor David, which had been collected by 

 him at Funafuti, when conducting the Coral Reef Exploration 

 Expedition in 1897. He states that the Heliopora coerulea is 

 there very abundant in places. 



The occurrence of the blue colouring matter in this coral is 

 drawn attention to by the late H. N. Moseley, f.r.s., in the 

 Challenger Reports, 1 who points out that it can be partly separated 

 by dissolving away the calcareous matter by means of hydrochloric 

 acid, and dissolving the pigment in alcohol — he however did not 

 obtain it in a pure form nor did he ascertain its chemical compo- 

 sition ; but he gives a full account, illustrated by drawings, of 

 the way in which it occurs in the coral. He states : — " The blue 

 tint is seen in sections of the corallum of Heliopora coerulea to be 

 diffused within the hard tissue. The colour is faint or almost 

 absent in the freshly-growing tips of the corallum, and pale in 

 the most recently formed superficial structures generally • it is 

 darkest in the layer lying immediately beneath these, that is to 

 say, in the most recently matured tissue. 



"In transverse sections it is seen to be darkest at the surfaces 

 of the walls of the tubes and calicles. In vertical section of the 



1 Zoology, Vol. ii., p. 109; see also H. N. Moseley, " On the Colouring 

 Matters of Various Animals, and Especially of Deep Sea Forms Dredged 

 by H.M.S. Challenger." — Quart. Journ. of Micro. Soc, New Ser., Jan. 1877, 

 Vol. xii., p. 2. 



