1872.] 



Mr. E. Ray Lankester on Haemoglobin. 



73 



by amoeboid corpuscles, which are colourless, and by the genital products. 

 When a Glycera is irritated so as to cause it frequently to extrude its 

 large pharyngeal tube and jaws, a red line is noticed running along the 

 whole of the ventral surface. This appears to be caused by the pressure of 

 the fluid containing the red corpuscles into the cavity of the outer sheath 

 of the nerve-chord, and may have some functional importance. The cor- 

 puscles enter this sheath at its anterior termination*. 



2. Occurrence of Hcemoglobin in the vascular fluid of Turbellarians. — 

 Quatrefages observed that the fluid in the vessels of the Nemertean worm 

 Polia sanguirubra was coloured red. In a species examined at Naples, I 

 have found that this colour is due to Haemoglobin diffused in the liquid. 

 In by far the majority of cases the vascular fluid of the Turbellaria is 

 colourless. My friend Mr. H. N. Moseley last year observed Haemo- 

 globin with the spectroscope in a small Planarian at Suez. 



3. Occurrence of Haemoglobin in corpuscles in the blood of a Lamelli- 

 branchiate Mollusk. — Solen legumen, which is known to the Neapolitan 

 fishermen as " Canolicca femina," has a reddish tint ; and this was found 

 to be due to the red colour of the blood, which could be seen very beau- 

 fully, like a natural injection, in the blood-sinuses and vessels of the 

 mollusk. When one of the shell-valves was partially removed so as to 

 obtain a clearer view of the underlying parts, the red-coloured fluid 

 could be seen passiug from one of the large sinuses to another, as the 

 animal expanded and retracted its long worm-like foot. I would par- 

 ticularly draw attention to the fact that though, when thus irritated, an 

 increased amount of liquid appeared to be exuded from the mollusk, yet 

 this liquid was entirely colourless and devoid of corpuscles — a fact which 

 must qualify existing notions as to the escape of the organized blood- 

 fluid of Mollusca, based upon the well-ascertained existence of apertures 

 communicating with the exterior in their vascular system. If the liquor 

 sanguinis escapes, it is clear that at any rate the corpuscles, in which, as 

 will be mentioned, the red colouring-matter resides, do not. A very 

 slight injury to the tissue of the mantle is sufficient to cause an escape of 

 the red-coloured fluid ; and this when placed under the microscope is found 

 to consist of a plasma in which float abundant oval, sharply contoured cells 

 of a red colour (figs. 4 & 5). The red colour was definitely proved to be 

 due to Haemoglobin by examination with the microspectroscope, giving the 

 two bands identical with those of O, Hb from human blood, and furnishing 



* To the case here recorded, of Hcemoglobin occurring in corpuscles among Vermes, 

 I can now add that of the annelid Capitella, the corpuscles of which I found similar 

 to those of Glycera, and further, the remarkable G-ephyrean Thoronis hippocrepia 

 (fig. 6). In the annelids Cirrhatulus and Ophelia, corpuscles occur in the closed vascular 

 system, which contains a liquid in which Haemoglobin is diffused. Such a vascular fluid 

 is common among the Chsetopoda; but these are the only cases known in which it 

 contains corpuscles. On examining these corpuscles, which are very small in number, 

 I find them to be not special Haemoglobin-bearing corpuscles, but small amoeboid 

 particles which are impregnated with Hb, just as the surrounding fluid is. 



