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



The corpuscles of the perivisceral fluid of the Grephyrean Sipunculus 

 nudus, which is abundant in the Gulf of Naples, present some facts which 

 are interesting in relation to the occurrence of Haemoglobin; and I may 

 therefore draw attention to them before concluding this paper. The fluid 

 which is contained in the perivisceral cavity of this worm is, as is well 

 known, of a pale madder-red colour. It contains a remarkable abundance 

 and variety of corpuscles, the most numerous of which are thick circular 

 disks, varying in diameter from -^ruu ^° Wud °^ an ulcn > an< ^ ™- these, 

 and these only, the pink colour resides (fig. 7). These pink corpuscles 

 consist of a clear homogeneous substance, of high refringent power, in 

 which are scattered three or four bright granules and a small nucleus, 

 which is rendered obvious by the action of acetic acid. Rosaniline stains 

 this nucleus, but does not usually give any other macule, such as are to be 

 observed when it is added to Haemoglobin-containing corpuscles*. Dr. 

 Alexander Brandt, in a recent memoir, very rightly insists on the similarity 

 between these pink corpuscles of Sipunculus and the red corpuscles 

 of the blood of Vertebrata : they are something quite distinct from 

 the amoeboid corpuscles found in the fluid corresponding to blood 

 in nearly all Invertebrata, and are to be compared to the red cor- 

 puscles of Glycera, Solen, and Vertebrates. The amoeboid corpuscles are 

 otherwise represented in the perivisceral fluid of Sipunculus by numerous 

 active amoeboid cells. Dr. Brandt, naturally enough, regarded the pink 

 colour of these corpuscles as favouring their assimilation to vertebrate red 

 corpuscles. The colour en masse is, however, obviously different from that 

 of dilute Haemoglobin ; and I was not therefore surprised to find that it 

 did not give the absorption-spectrum of that body. This pink colouring- 

 matter is soluble in water. When a little fresh water is added to some of 

 the perivisceral fluid in a tube, it takes up all the colour, whilst the cor- 

 puscles sink in a colourless condition to the bottom. No detached bands 

 of absorption of any kind were given by the colouring-matter thus ob- 

 tained ; a slight acidulation with acetic acid was sufficient to destroy the 

 colour. Ammonia had the same action, also ether and alcohol. 



Though this pink substance is thus devoid of the spectral properties 

 which characterize Haemoglobin and Chlorocruorin, it does not seem im- 

 probable that it is a body analogous to them in other properties, since the 

 corpuscles in which it resides can only be compared to the respiratory or 

 oxygen-carrying corpuscles occurring in the blood of Vertebrates and the 

 four Invertebrates noticed in this paper. Moreover this pink colouring- 

 matter occurs in other parts of the organism of Sipunculus, namely, dif- 

 fused in the substance of a remarkable tissue which runs along the wall 

 of the intestine, forming a red streak, which has sometimes been taken 

 for a blood-vessel, and also in the peculiar cellular tissue which surrounds 

 the true nerve-tissue of the nerve-chord. 



* On one occasion out of many I obtained an appearance of the kind ; and hence 

 further observation on this point is necessary. 



