l6o S. STILLMAN BERRY. 



conspicuous by very reason of their paucity and desultory 

 character. 



A brief historical survey of this subject has been given by 

 Hoyle (:o8), but the most valuable contributions thereto have 

 been made since that time, while Hoyle himself omitted one or 

 two quite interesting accounts from his summary. It will 

 therefore be well to review briefly the entire field. 



I have been no more successful than previous authors in the 

 discovery of any recorded observation of photogenic phenomena 

 in living Cephalopoda prior to that of Verany in the case of 

 Histioteuthis bonnellii (bot^elliana) , ('51, p. 119), a translation 

 of which is quoted in full by Hoyle in the paper cited and is well 

 worthy of repetition here. 1 



"As often as other engagements permitted, I watched the 

 fishing carried on by the dredge on the shingly beaches which 

 extend from the town of Nice to the mouth of the Var. On the 

 afternoon of September 7, 1834, I arrived at the beach when the 

 dredge had just been drawn in, and saw in the hands of a child a 

 cuttle-fish, unfortunately greatly damaged. I was so struck by 

 the singularity of its form and the brilliance of its color that I at 

 once secured it, and, showing it to the fishermen, asked whether 

 they were acquainted with it. Upon their replying in the 

 negative I called their special attention to it, and offered a 

 handsome reward for the next specimen secured, either alive or 

 in good condition, and then passed on to other fishermen and 

 repeated my promise. Shortly afterwards I was summoned and 

 shown a specimen clinging to the net, which I seized and placed 

 in a vessel of water. At that moment I enjoyed the astonishing 

 spectacle of the brilliant spots, which appeared upon the skin of 

 this animal, whose remarkable form had already impressed me: 

 sometimes it was a ray of sapphire blue which blinded me; 

 sometimes of opalescent topaz yellow, which rendered it still 

 more striking; at other times these two rich colors mingled their 

 magnificent rays. During the night these opalescent spots 

 emitted a phosphorescent brilliance which rendered this mollusc 



1 Verany's monograph is a very rare one in the United States, especially in 

 the West, where I am not aware that any complete copy exists. I am accordingly 

 entirely dependent for the information quoted upon the translation given by Hoyle. 



