some Marine Invertebrata. 17 



the phosphorescence of the sea to a Nereis ; Shaw, to certain 

 flexible zoophytes, &c. 



French naturalists have not been behind in this movement. 

 In 1764, Rigaut discovered and described in an unmistakeable 

 manner the Noctiluca of Suriray ; it is to them that he attributes 

 the phosphorescence of the British Channel and Atlantic Ocean. 

 The Abbe Dicqneniare, by researches in the harbour of Havre, 

 confirmed the first results, which, forgotten for a time, were again 

 corroborated by the labours of Suriray at the same locality. The 

 learned hydrographical engineer, M. de Tessan, rediscovered the 

 Noctilucre, or animals very similar, in the seas of the Cape of 

 Good Hope, at False Bay*. M. Rang mentions their presence 

 on the coast of Algiersf- More recently M. Verhaeghe has been 

 led by his investigations at OstendJ to the same conclusions as 

 Dicquemare and Suriray. 



The assertion of Rigaut was manifestly exaggerated ; the Noc- 

 tilucre are not alone in producing this phBenomenon. The lumi- 

 nous properties of various Medusse have been established beyond 

 doubt by the testimony of Peron, Macartney, Tilesius, Banks, 

 Forskal, Humboldt, Ehrenberg, Rathke, &c. Peron and Le- 

 sueur, Humboldt, and others after them, have described with en- 

 thusiasm the magnificent spectacle presented by shoals of Pyro- 

 somaSj which in the dark look like streams of fused metal. Hen- 

 derson ascribed the light of the Gulf of Guinea principally to the 

 Scyllari and to Salpas§. Certain Acalephs, MoUusca, Crustacea, 

 Annelids, Rotatoria, Lumbrici, Turbellarise, Echinoderms, Zoo- 

 phytes and Infusoria have been successively pointed out as ca- 

 pable of phosphorescence ; and if we do not here go into more 

 detail on this point, it is because the subject has been so fully 

 treated by Ehrenberg. In the work which the illustrious Secre- 

 tary of the Berlin Academy has devoted to the phosphorescence 

 of the sea, he has enumerated 450 authors who have treated 

 more or less fully of the production of light by organized beings ; 

 and to this memoir we refer those readers who are curious to 

 understand thoroughly the history of the question ||. We annex 

 a table, cited almost entire from M. Van Beneden, in which are 



* Comptes Rendus de 1' Academic des ScienceSj 1840. Rapport fait par 

 M. Arago. 



t Cited from Gervais, by M. Vau Beneden. 



X Report of M. Van Beneden on the memoir of Dr. Verliaeghe, entitled 

 " Recherches sur la cause de la phosphorescence de la mer dans les parages 

 d'Ostendc" (Bulletin de I'Academie Royale de Belgique, t. xiii. par. 2. p. 3. 

 1846). 



§ Cited by M. Van Beneden. 



II Das Leuchten des Meeres (Abhandl. der Konigl. Akademie der Wiss, 

 zu Berlin, 1834). 



Ann. ^ Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 3. T'bZ. xii. 2 



