Colouring-matters of the so-called Bile of Invertebrates, Sfc. 385 



Nitric acid turned this extract greenish and the usual five-banded 

 spectrum was seen. 



The alcoholic solution fluoresced red. There is reason to suppose 

 that a similar colouring-matter exists on the outside of the shell, 

 which can be extracted with chloroform. There is also another 

 colouring-matter in the perivisceral fluid, which I have described 

 in a paper read before the Birmingham Philosophical Society, and to 

 which I have given the name " Echinochrom.e."* 



Summary and Remarks. — It is evident that the livers of Mollusca 

 and Crustacea, the pyloric coeca of starfishes, and intestinal appen- 

 dages of Echinus, all contain in greater or less amount a pig- 

 ment which is undoubtedly chlorophyll. If this chlorophyll is 

 derived directly from their food, it is strange that it should present 

 similar characters in animals which feed on plants containing different 

 colouring-matters, and that it should still be found in the bile of 

 Helix after a six months' fast. 



A microscopic examination of a slug's or snail's liver shows the 

 presence of a pigment of a yellowish colour, which within the liver- 

 cells is generally deposited in granules ; but there are also bodies 

 which remind one strongly of unicellular algai, the exact nature 

 of which I have not yet determined. Whether this chlorophyll 

 is built up by the animal itself, or whether it is derived from 

 the food directly, still remains doubtful, but its universal distribu- 

 tion and the large amount present in different livers, teach that it 

 plays an important part in the life of the animal containing it. 

 Although I have failed to change enterochlorophyll into other pig- 

 ments by oxidising and reducing agents, one cannot help supposing 

 that it does give origin, perhaps under the influence of a ferment, in 

 the animal's body (liver, &c), to some other colouring-matter. This 

 view being supported by the fact that one can extract from the 

 liver colouring-matters which are present with the enterochlorophyll. 

 Moreover, these colouring-matters are closely related to those of the 

 integument;f for instance, in crabs one finds lutein in the "bile" 

 and lutein in the hypoderm, tetronerythrin in the liver and in the 

 hypoderm and shell, and the same pigment in the pyloric coeca of 

 starfishes and in the integuments of the same starfishes ; again, 

 hasmatin in the bile of slugs, and hgematin derivatives in their integu- 



* In that paper several integumental and other colouring-matters are described, 

 which I met with during an examination of the above and other animals. See 

 "Proc. Birm. Philos. Soc," vol. iii, p. 351, et seq. 



f In the integument of Crustacea (exoskeleton and hypoderm) I found tetron- 

 erythrin, lutein, and a pigment like Moseley's " actiniochrome ;" in that of slugs a 

 peculiar hsematin derivative ; in that of starfishes tetronerythrin, a pigment like ac- 

 tiniochrome, and a peculiar hsematin derivative : these are described in the paper 

 above referred to. " Proc. Birm. Philos. Soc," vol. iii, 1883. 



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