^Snal,^u?yri86?] PBOCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 59 
researclies would have led to a paper on the subject addressed to the 
Society, but Dr. Herapath died before he was able to make any com- 
munication to the Society. The only result of the investigations had 
appeared in a letter which Dr. Herapath had written to a friend, and 
which he (Mr. Hogg) had been permitted to read to the Fellows. 
The letter was accordingly read, and copies of a lithograph 
exhibiting the characteristic spectral bands of the various substances 
were distributed among the Fellows, Mr. Hogg expressing his opinion 
that Dr. Herapath had made a mistake with regard to the colours 
exhibited in the spectrum of the Laurestinus and Berberry. 
Mr. Kay Lankester said that as he had paid some attention to the 
spectroscope, he should like to make a few remarks. He was much 
surprised on hearing Mr. Hogg's paper, seeing that it professed to 
give the results of spectrum analysis, to find that he omitted all 
reference to what were really the most important results obtained by 
its means in biological science, namely, those that related to the 
action of various gases and other reagents on the blood colouring- 
matter Hasmoglobin and Cruorin. Dr. Arthur Gamgee, Nawrocki, 
Preyer, Hoppe-Seyler, and others, had worked most successfully in 
this direction. 
With regard to the late Dr. Herapath's drawings of chlorophyll 
bands, Mr. Lankester observed that he considered them as of little 
value, since they were not really accurately measured, whilst a 
method of preparation had been used which must be fallacious, and 
which was the same as that which Mr. Hogg recommended. It is 
useless to extract the chlorophyll from leaves at once by alcohol, they 
must previously be soaked in water, to extract the vegetable acids 
which are present in some leaves, and which greatly alter the absorp- 
tion bands if allowed to act on the chlorophyll. Professor Stokes, of 
Cambridge, who will in all probability soon publish a detailed account 
of chlorophyll, by the use first of alcohol and then of bisulphide of 
carbon, has succeeded in extracting two distinct green bodies from 
ordinary plant chlorophyll. Mr. Lankester then pointed out the error 
of Mr. Hogg's assertion that the haemoglobin found in some house- 
flies is present in their blood ; it is simply in the intestinal canal, 
having been taken in as food. This erroneous statement was the 
more to be regretted as it tended to throw confusion on results which 
Mr. Lankester had himself obtained and published in the ' Journal of 
Anatomy ' two years since, and which he hopes to extend in a report 
to the British Association this summer. He would particularly com- 
mend this line of research to the Fellows of the Society. By the 
use of the spectroscope, Mr. Lankester had found haemoglobin in the 
vascular fluid of annelids of various species — in Chironomus larvae and 
other larvae, among insects, and in Planorbis corneas among molluscs. 
His friend. Dr. Edouard Van Beneden, had just given him reason to 
expect its discovery in certain remarkable parasitic crustaceans dis- 
covered by that observer. 
Besides this, with the spectroscope chlorophyll may be traced, 
and should be looked for, in the animal kingdom. He had clearly 
established its presence and published the fact in Spongilla fluviatilis, 
in Hydra viridis, in Stentor, and in Mesostomum viridatum. This was 
