LIVING LAMPS 



22g 



as a compensation there Is produced by the animals themselves 

 a splendid illumination of the whole, inasmuch as almost all 

 are strongly phosphorescent, with the power of producing from 

 their bodies an intense light, bluish, greenish or reddish. 



Of the animals living on the bottom of the deep sea very 

 many, if not most, are brilliantly phosphorescent, and the mud 

 that comes up with them is full of luminous specks. Most 

 striking are the alcyonarians and sea-pens and their allies all, 

 or nearly all, of which are brightly luminous, white, hlac, or 

 greenish blue, the light fading and increasing in different parts 

 with a wave-like action. Several of the brittle-stars shine a 

 lovely brilliant green all over, the light fading and reappearing; 

 others shine brightly at the joints. Some of the star-lishes are 

 almost or quite as bright, and many of the jointed worms or 

 annelids are very brilliant. 



Speaking of a dredge haul in 3600 feet of water off Cape St. 

 Vincent Sir Wyville Thomson said that the trawl seemed to 

 have gone over a regular field of a delicate simple gorgonian 

 with a thin wire-like axis slightly twisted spirally, a small tuft 

 of irregular rootlets at the base, and long projecting polyps. 

 The stems, which were from 18 inches to two feet in leno-fh, 

 were coiled in great hanks around the trawl beam and entangled 

 in masses in the net; and as they showed a most vivid phos- 

 phorescence of a pale lilac color, their immense numbers sug- 

 gested a wonderful state of things beneath — animated corn 

 fields waving gently in the slow tidal currents and glowing with 

 a soft diffused light, scintillating and sparkling at the slightest 

 touch, and now and again breaking into long avenues of vivid 

 light indicating the paths of fishes or other wandering denizens 

 of their enchanted region. 



Speaking of some dredge hauls made northwest of Scotland 

 Sir Wyville said that in some places nearly everything brought 

 up seemed to emit light, and the mud itself was perfectly full 

 of luminous specks. The alcyonarians, the brittle-stars, and 

 some of the jointed worms were the most brilliant. The pennat- 

 ulids, the virgularians and the gorgonians shone with a lambent 



