CHYLAQUEOUS FLUID OF INVERTEBRATE ANIMALS. 
631 
these animals became with Cuvier the ground of classification, “ Frappe de la couleur 
si remarquable du liquide nourricier chez ces animaux, il les designa d’abord sous le 
nom de Vers a sang rouge.” 
Lamarck also viewed the red blood of the Annelida (a name now first devised and 
applied by him) as an essential distinction of the class* * * § . It was observed at this 
time by M. de Blainville, that in Aphrodita aculeata and Herissa the blood was 
colourless-f. M. Pallas had however anticipated both Cuvier and De Blainville 
in these observations, as well as in that of the existence of red blood in many of the 
Annelida;};. To the laborious researches of Milne-Edwards the zoologist is indebted 
for a full and complete history of the colour and distribution of the blood in the An- 
nelida §. It is however remarkable that an observer of such proverbial accuracy should 
have overlooked the question relating to the structure of this fluid. Remarking that 
in the Euniciadce, Euphrosinidce, Nereidoe, Nephthys, Glycera, Arenicola, Hermella, 
Terehella, Serpula, Lumhricus, Hirudo, &c., the blood is of a red colour, he proceeds, 
“ Mais, du reste, examine au microscope, ce liquide ne m’a pas semble differer du sang 
des autres animaux sans vertebres. Les globules qu’on y voit nager n’ont pas du 
tout I’aspect de ceux propres au sang des animaux vertebres : ce sont des corpuscules 
circuiaires dont la surface a une apparence framboisee et dont les dimensions varient 
extremement chez un rneme animal ||.” From the direct expressions used in the above 
passage, it is manifest that Professor M.-Edwards admits the existence of “ circular 
corpuscles” in the blood of the Annelida, which according to his description, present 
the appearance of raspberries, varying much in dimensions in the same individual. 
In his learned memoir^ in the Philosophical Transactions (1846), Mr. Wharton 
Jones describes and figures the blood-corpuscles {sic) of the Earth-worm and the 
Leech, and defines, in the following terms, the mode in which the samples submitted 
* “ Ce qui a efFectivement paru tr^s singulier, ce fut de trouver que les Annelides, quoique moins perfec- 
tionnes en organisation que les Mollusques, avaient cependant le sang veritablement rouge, tandis que celui 
des Mollusques, des Crustaces &c., n’a 2 ias encore cette couleur qui depend de son etat et de sa composition, et 
qui est celle du sang de tons les animaux vertebres. On sent bien que, parmi les animaux que nous rapportons 
a notre classe des Annelides, ceux qui se trouveraient n’avoir pas dans leur organisation le caractere classique, 
n’infirment point ce caractere et ne sont places ici qu’en attendant que leur organisation soit mieux connue.” — 
Lamarck, Animaux sans Vertebres, t. v. p. 276. 
t Art. Vers, du Dictionnaire des Sciences Naturelles, t. Ivii. p. 409. 
I See his Miscellanea Zoologica, p. 89. “ Seeds in dorso longitudinaliter tegumentis, occurrit vasculum 
lympha ssepe turbidula plenum.” From this sentence it is much more probable that in this section Pallas 
merely opened the great cavity between the intestine and the integument, out of which the lympha turbida 
escaped, and that it was not the blood-proper, as Milne-Edwards supposed, that Pallas described, but the 
fluid occupying the peritoneal cavity. 
§ Recherches pour servir a I’histoire de la circulation du sang chez les Annelides, lues a I’Academie des 
Sciences le .30 Oct. 1837. 
II Annales des Sciences, 2“^ serie, Oct. 1848, ‘ Circulation dans les Annelides,’ par M. M.-Edwards. 
^ The Blood-corpuscle considered in its different Phases of Development in the Animal Series, by T. W. 
Jones, F.R.S., Philosophical Transactions, Part II. 1846. 
