368 Journal of Travel and Nahiral History 



the right, from Makung Harbour, is deep blue, spotted with yellow, 

 and with the tentacles and branchiae of bright vermilion. The 

 next from Labuan is striated with delicate alternate hues of broA\Ti 

 and yellow. The long, 5;mooth one from Labuan is reddish, pass- 

 ing into a brilliant amethystine head, and edged with opaque 

 white, the tentacles and dorsal branchise orange. The last on the 

 right, from Fiery Cross Reef, is described as reaching nearly eight 

 inches in length, of an olive-green colour, and covered with slimy 

 bosses and tubercules, which rendered it a most unsightly object. 

 Most, if not all of these, are undescribed. 



It would require more space than we can give to follow Dr 

 Collingwood through the numerous other marine animals touched 

 on by him — crabs, molluscs, fishes, star-fishes, annelides, hy- 

 drozoa, forminifera, &c. The marine zoologist will find much 

 to interest him. A valuable paper, which had been already pub- 

 lished in one of our scientific periodicals, on the luminosity of the 

 sea, is incorporated with the narrative. In it the various kinds of 

 phosphorescence are defined and traced to their origin, the number 

 of divisions being five, viz.: — i. Sparks or points of light; 2. a 

 soft liquid, general and wide spread efililgence ; 3. moon-shaped 

 patches of steady light ; 4. instantaneous recurrent flashes ; 5. 

 milky sea. All these are traced to animal life of some kind or 

 other, and his explanation of the phenomena is as follows : — 



" Ever since, many years ago, I became acquainted with INlr Groves' ' Re- 

 searches upon the Corelation of Physical Forces,' I have looked upon that in- 

 genious theory as the rational explanation of animal luminosity. Light, heat, 

 electricity, magnetism, motion, and chemical force, are all interchangeable, and 

 each may manifest itself in the form of the other ; but although these are called 

 the physical forces, who can say that they are not organic forces also ? One of 

 them, which long since would have been regarded as eminently inorganic, is 

 now fully recognised as an organic force produced by vital organs, and regulated 

 by the will of the animal exhibiting it. I allude of course to electricity, an 

 agent which is possessed by several fishes, and we know not by what other 

 animals, a force which is produced directly through the agency of neiTOUS power, 

 for the regulation of which a special cerebral lobe is recognised. If this ner\-e 

 force or vitality can display iiself in the form of electricity, why should it not 

 do so also in the fonn of light? In the more highly organised luminous 

 animals, as in Lampyris (the glow-worm), in which nervous centres exist, there 

 is a special organ for the development of light, doubtless regulated by some part 

 of the nervous system. KiJllikcr, in his examination of the luminous property 

 of that insect, came to the conclusion that there was neither combustion nor 

 phosphonis in the case, but that it was the product of a nervous apparatus, and 

 dependent upon the will of the animal. In others the contractility of muscular 



