72 



Mr. E. Ray Lankester on Hemoglobin. [Dec. 12, 



siuni, followed by that of a reducing agent (sulphide of ammonium), this 

 body, to which the name Chlorocruorin was given, furnished two absorp- 

 tion-bands identical with those exhibited by Haemoglobin when similarly 

 treated. Last year I found that the red colour of the pharyngeal muscles 

 of the Grasteropods Lymnceus and Paludina* was due to the presence of 

 Haemoglobin diffused in the muscular tissue ; and at the Meeting of the 

 British Association at Edinburgh I demonstrated its occurrence in the 

 pharyngeal muscular mass of Littorina, where it is in sufficient quantity 

 to give a very intense blood-red colour. The interest of this fact con- 

 sists in this, that in no other part, not even in the blood of these mol- 

 lusks, does Haemoglobin occur; hence the doubts which Brozeitf had 

 attempted to throw upon Kuhne's conclusions with regard to the red 

 colour of mammalian voluntary muscular tissue were rendered of less 

 significance than before. It was also mentioned that whilst Haemoglobin 

 is absent from the unstriped muscular tissue of mammalia generally, it 

 occurs in that tissue in the rectum of man, and probably of other 

 mammals. 



Some observations made during the past winter at Naples will tend to 

 enlarge the basis of facts sketched above, upon which I have ventured to 

 make some generalizations with regard to the mode of occurrence of 

 Haemoglobin in the animal economy. 



1. Occurrence of Haemoglobin in corpuscles in the perivisceral fluid of the 

 Annelids Grlycera and Capitella, and of the Gephyrean Phoronis. — Many 

 of the marine Chaetopodous Annelids are devoid of that closed vascular 

 system which in others contains a fluid impregnated with Haemoglobin 

 or Chlorocruorin. Glycera is one of these anangian forms ; but, as an 

 exception to the general rule, has peculiar corpuscles in its perivisceral 

 fluid which are of a red colour, as was observed by De Quatrefages and 

 confirmed by Claparede. These corpuscles I find, when submitted to the 

 microspectroscope, give an absorption-spectrum identical with that of 

 Haemoglobin, as proved by the superposition of the spectra. The Haemo- 

 globin of these corpuscles was readily obtained in both the oxidized and 

 the reduced conditions. The corpuscles (PI. I. figs. 1, 2, & 3) which con- 

 tain the Haemoglobin are round, somewhat flattened, cheese-shaped bodies 

 TT5 o °^ an i ncn ^ diameter, possessing a very delicate wall, which often 

 becomes irregularly puckered by increased density of the fluid in which 

 the corpuscles float, and a scarcely visible nucleus about t-qVq- of an inch 

 in diameter eccentrically placed, which is brought into sharp definition by 

 the action of weak acids, and exhibits granulation of its contents. These 

 corpuscles exhibit a tendency to run into rouleaux, and form aggregations 

 similar to those known in the case of mammalian and other vertebrate 

 red corpuscles. They are by no means so numerous in the perivisceral 

 fluid as are the red corpuscles in vertebrate blood, and are accompanied 



* " Verbreitung des Haemoglobins," Archiv f. gesam. Physiol. 1871. 



t " Bestinimung der Blutmenge im Korper," Archiv f. ges. Physiol. Bonn, 1870, p. 353. 



