447 



mills are well descriLed by Banks and .SoLuider ; and in his second 

 Voyage, by Foi-ster. Spallanzani made some good experiments on tho 

 phosphorescence of a Medusa in the Straits of Messina. 



Since that period, the catalogue of noctilucous animals has been 

 givatly enlai-ged, especially by Peron and Lessueur, the naturalists 

 to the French Voyages de D^couvertes aux Terres Australes. A 

 good paper on the luminousness of the sea, by Mr Macartney, 

 ajipeared in the London Phil. Trans, for 1810; in which the 

 phcuumonon is ascribed entirely to living animals, an opinion now 

 generally embraced Ijy naturalists. 



The author then detailed his own experiments and observations 

 made, from early life, in diti'erent parts of the European Atlantic, 

 from lat. 62° to 36° N., chiefly around the shores of Britain, all 

 which conHrmed this opinion. 



He detected, in 1814, several of the same noctilucous animals in 

 the waters of the Bay of Biscay as in our own seas, especially the 

 Nvdiluca miliaris, Orythia viiniina, and a very minute crustacean, 

 seemingly a Zde. 



Besides these, the Beroe fuhjem of Macartney, and several other 

 ^ledusaria, he found two very remarkable animals in the luminous 

 waters of the seas around the Western Isles of Scotland — one an 

 ^quurea, most splendidly phosphorescent, which seems to be 

 ^quorea mesonema of Eschscheltz ; and the other a most elegant 

 CijiUppe, probably the Crjdlppe jmmiformis of Paterson. Both were 

 carefully figured from the life by the author, and magnified drawings 

 of them were exhibited. 



The paper was concluded by some strictures on the hypothesis of 

 Lamarck, respecting the absence of muscular power and of voluntary 

 movements in the order of Radiaires mollasneg. He gave the residts 

 of many experiments which he had made on the movements of the 

 ^ledusse, and which convinced him that they possessed considerable 

 muscular power, obedient to vohtiou ; and he ascribed the erroneous 

 views of Lamarck on this subject to his little familiarity with those 

 animals in their natural haunts ; for a Medusa swimming in the sea, 

 and cast on the beach, have very different capabilities of locomotion. 



The following Donations to the Society's Library were 

 announced : — 



Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal Xo& 132 and 133. — Bij 



the Society. 

 Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. Nas. 26 and 



27. — By the Society. 



