ANTHOZOA HYDROIDA. 95 
The late truly amiable Dr. Neill knew it. He told me 
that more than twenty years before that period, having laid 
some zoophytes out of his vasculum in ‘the lobby till he 
had time to make some experiments with them, one of his 
maid-servants, after it was dark, having come’ across them 
roughly, was almost frightened out of her wits by the sudden 
flashes, thinking that Will-o’-the-wisp had sprung up among 
her fingers. 
As I find that I generally write more con amore on a 
subject when it is new to me, and when, in my ignorance, 
I may think that perchance it is not very familiar to others, 
I may, perhaps, be pardoned for transcribing a portion of 
what I wrote for a periodical more than ten years ago. 
“Having brought from the shore, in a vasculum, some 
-zoophytes, I laid them aside till I should have leisure to 
examine them. When the evening came I was beginning 
in the dark to take them out of the vasculum, when, to my 
surprise and delight, they began to sparkle. Recollecting 
what I had read in Dr. Johnston’s ‘ History of British 
Zoophytes’ respecting the phosphorescence of Sertularra 
pumila, I gave them, as I removed them from the vasculum, 
a hearty shake, and they instantly became quite brilliant, 
like strings of little stars or precious diamonds. To ascer- 
