Shining Fish, Flesh, and Wood 477 



This story has also been repeated by a number of writers ^^ on 

 luminescence, but Emmert and Hochstetter (1811), who made an 

 embryological study of the developing eggs of both lizards (Lacerta) 

 and snakes (Coluber) never saw luminescence, despite many exami- 

 nations in the dark. However, a friend, Herr Lienert of Bern, saw 

 luminous lizard eggs one evening under the sand where they were 

 laid, but the following evening there was no light.-^ 



The luminous hen's egg story also stems from the seventeenth 

 century and has been recounted by Bouvier (1910) . After speaking 

 of the alleged light-giving birds of the Hercynian Forest and more 

 recent reports of luminous birds, Bouvier asked whether the lumi- 

 nosity could not be due to the same cause as " oeufs lumineux," 

 which were described in the Collection Academique Etrangere 

 4: 174), published at Dijon in 1757 and taken from the " Ephe- 

 merides Naturae Curiosum " (Dec, II, 1687) . It was reported that 

 a certain Christian Francois Paullin noticed one night a light in 

 his room. Approaching more closely, he realized " que cette clarte 

 venoit de quelques oeufs, que couvait une pole blanche, fecondee 

 par un coq tres ardent, lesquels etoient devenus lumineux." No 

 further details are given by Bouvier, and we might possibly classify 

 this observation, with its French touch, as a reflection of light from 

 the white shell of the eggs, were it an isolated case. 



However, there are more recent reports. J. Heller (1853: 165) 

 himself saw hen's eggs with weak thin shells that luminesced " stel- 

 lenweise " on the second day after laying, like phosphorescent wood. 

 He also saw luminous eggs of the snake, Coluber natrix, and noted 

 that the light came from a moist, slippery coating which could be 

 easily wiped away. 



In an attempt to check on these stories, Hans Molisch (1904) 

 made many attempts to observe luminous hen's eggs, fresh, old and 

 actually rotten, but without success. However, he did observe the 

 luminescence of " soleiern," hen's eggs boiled, shelled, and pre- 

 served in salt solutions, sent him by Dr. Gerloff of Nauheim. This 

 luminescence turned out to be bacterial in origin and brilliant cul- 



''^ Schrank (1788) called attention to the luminous hen's eggs of Paullinus (1687), 

 and considered the light due to decomposition, since luminescence occurred in the 

 upper layers, full of " faulenden Theilen." Jacob Sturm's unpaged pamphlet, pub- 

 lished at Niirnberg in 1799, mentions that the eggs of Lacerta agilis aie luminous. 

 The account was written by a man named Wolf, evidently copied from Gruendler. 



"* A more modern observation on luminous eggs of a lizard has been published 

 (Lacerta, No. 1: 87-88, 1908) by H. Geyer, who found nine eggs in his garden in 

 very damp soil, of which six were luminous. They contained well advanced embryoes, 

 alive and non-luminescent, but the albumen and particularly the empty shell shone 

 brightly. On the next night the eggs were dark. Geyer attributed the light to 

 luminous bacteria. 



