26 History of Luminescence 



again suffers a metamorphosis, and transforms into a winged insect 

 named the bostrychus " (a lock or curl of hair) .^^ This insect was 

 called pygolampis (tail light) or pyrolampis (bright with fire) in 

 most Greek texts but according to Muffet (1634) has also been 

 called kusolampos (rump light) or lampyris (brilliant one) and, 

 by way of metaphor, lampedon and spinther, both words meaning a 

 spark. 



Fireflies are also mentioned ^® by the Greek lexicographer Aristo- 

 phanes the grammarian of Byzantium {ca. 257-180 b. c.) , the geogra- 

 pher Artemidor of Ephesus (second century b. c.) , and much later 

 by the lexicographers, Hesychius of Alexandria {ca. fifth century 

 A. D.) and Suidas of Byzantium {ca. tenth century, a. d.) . Aristo- 

 phanes thought fireflies developed from worms on peas, while 

 Hesychius believed they arose from the underbrush. Fireflies are 

 not included among the animal remedies of Dioscorides (first 

 century a. d.) . 



Aristotle's remarks on the aurora borealis will be found in a later 

 section of this chapter. 



strabo 



After Aristotle, Strabo (63 b. c. to a. d. 24) , the Greek geographer, 

 in the last of his seventeen books, mentioned the dilyxnos (literally, 

 double light) , as a Nile fish. According to the Swiss naturalist, 

 Conrad Gesner (1516-1565) , the name referred to luminescence of 

 eyes or gills. Ehrenberg (1834: 532-533) during a visit to Dongala 

 on the Nile in Nubia, well away from salt water, noticed lumines- 

 cence of the nearly flesh-free skeleton of the armor fish, Heterotis 

 nilotica,^'^ and wondered whether this fish could be the dilyxnos 

 of Strabo. The luminescence of Ehrenberg's fish was presumably 

 due to luminous bacteria, which are occasionally found growing on 

 fresh-water fish, as well as salt-water forms. However, some manu- 

 scripts of Strabo use the word lyxnos,^^ and there is nothing in the 

 text to indicate luminescence. The lyxnos is merely mentioned 

 with a number of other fish living in the Nile.^^. The most that can 

 be said is that observation of a luminous fish could have been made, 



"/dem., Book V, 55Ib 25. 



=8 According to MufFet (1634), Jonston (1653), and Otto Keller {Die Antike Tier- 

 welt 2: 408, 1913) . 



^■^ In G. A. Boulenger's Zoology of Egypt; the fishes of the Nile (1907), Heterotis 

 nilotica is figured (pi. XV) , but there is no mention of luminescence of any Nile fish. 



^^ Lyxnos is literally a light or lamp. According to R. Stromberg, Studien zur Ety- 

 mologie und Bildung der Griechischen Fischnamen (Goteborg, 1943) , the Greeks used 

 the collective name selachos for luminous fish. 



""> See Strabo's Geography, Book 17 (2) , sect. 4, trans, by H. C. Jones 8: 149, 1932. 



