phipson's phosphorescekce. 43 



the species of the animal and vegetable kingdoms ; and we could 

 conceive a most interesting volume being written on the various 

 creatures, organic and inorganic, in which this peculiar property is 

 found. Phosphorescence is a phenomenon familiar to all students of 

 nature. Even in this country, the naturalist by the sea-side recollects 

 the long flashes that come pouring in on the saDds, as on some warm 

 summer's evening he watches the waves gently breaking on the shore, 

 or the drops of fire that fall on the feathering of an oar. The 

 naturalist in this country brings to mind the glowworm, with its in- 

 effectual fire, or the centipede that leaves behind it a luminous trail. 

 He who has travelled in other lands, remembers how these phenomena 

 become intensified — Lucciola flying among the bushes, and Tunicates 

 and Hydrozoa rolling like globes of molten metal through the waves. 



The Kttle volume, the name of which heads this notice, is T,n 

 attempt to handle this subject in a popular-scientific manner. 

 The first portion of the volume speaks of miiieral phosphor- 

 escence ; the second, of the phosphorescence of vegetables ; the 

 third, of the phosphorescence of animals ; and the concluding part 

 is devoted to some historical and practical considerations about 

 phosphorescence. The whole of these subjects are treated of in a 

 very general, and, we may as well at once say, in a very unsatisfactory 

 manner ; and, though many of the accounts collected together are 

 curious and interesting, yet there is among them but little that strike 

 us as new ; while there are many things that show a strange amount 

 of ignorance, mixed up, it is true, with a certain small amount of 

 knowledge. 



The observations of Linneus's daughter on the common garden 

 ITasturtium, of Prof. Haggern on the Marigold and Orange Lilies, of 

 Pries on the Poppies, are all quoted as examples of phosphorescence 

 in flowering plants ; while the species of Ehizomorpha, the Agaricics 

 olearius, and others, are mentioned as instances of the same among 

 Cryptogams. In the chapter on the emission of light by dead animal 

 matter, the author alludes to a " peculiar mucus, sometimes seen 

 about spring, on the damp ground, near rivulets, which, from the 

 circumstance of its being occasionally phosphorescent at night, has 

 been regarded, since the middle ages, as having some connection with 

 the shooting-stars. This substance appears to be the "peculiar mucus" 

 which envelopes the ova of the frog. It swells to an enormous 

 volume when it has free access to water. It is swallowed by some 

 large crows, or other birds, and afterwards vomited, from its peculiar 



