BemarJcs on the Luminosity of the Sea, 3 



bosom, or lying on our shores, left by the recedmg wave. I 

 can never forget with what intense delight my friend Dovaston 

 and myself once watched them glide past us on a midnight 

 sail from Oban to Fort William ; nor how willingly, in those 

 regions of romance, philosophy alternately resigned her sway 

 to the brownie or the kelpie. But I think, with Mr. West- 

 wood, these " living fires of ocean " are not the primary 

 cause of the phenomenon ; and that, until some direct and 

 well-conducted experiments establish the fact that their lu- 

 minosity is an inherent and essential condition of their organ- 

 isation, we may suppose it to be of the nature already men- 

 tioned, which may adhere to their surface as they swim among 

 it, or may constitute their food ; and, as such, be seen through 

 their transparent substance : and, if friction be supposed ne- 

 cessary to exhibit it, this condition is probably fulfilled during 

 the process of digestion and assimilation. 



One word more " on the suppositions that have been raised 

 as to the objects of its existence." Those alluded to by your 

 correspondent are, at least, unsatisfactory ; and, as he has not 

 given the ingenious and highly probable conjectures of Dr. 

 MaccuUoch {Description of the Western Islands, vol. ii. p. 201.), 

 I shall subjoin them. He supposes " the property of phos- 

 phorescence has been conferred on many fishes, and appa- 

 rently in the greatest degree on the molluscous animals, whose 

 astonishing powers of reproduction, and whose insensibility 

 nearly approaching to vegetable life, seem to mark them as 

 having been principally created for the supply of the more 

 perfect tribes, to enable them to pursue their own prey, as 

 \vell as for disclosing themselves to their pursuers, either 

 during the darkness of the night, or in those deep recesses of 

 the ocean impervious to the solar ray." He further adds : — 

 " The luminous property of dead fish is, perhaps, calculated 

 for similar wise ends. Tliese, sinking to the bottom, become 

 capable of attracting the attention of the deep-water fishes; 

 answering the double purpose of food to these tribes, and 

 admitting the removal, as in the air, of carcasses which might 

 produce, even in those depths, inconveniences similar to those 

 which bodies in a state of putrefaction cause on the surface 

 of the earth. It is also not improbable that the desire which 

 fishes appear to show of following luminous bodies arises 

 from this natural instinct. Herrings are often caught in con- 

 siderable abundance by a fly or any bright substance, often 

 by new-tinned hooks, which they seize with great avidity. 



J. E. Bowman. 

 7'he Court near Wrexham., Nov. 7. 1831. 



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