Phosphorescence of the Sea 523 



nous form. The acid experiment convinced Rigaut that sea light 

 was due to " marine insects." 



J. R. Forster (1729-1798) , the companion and narrator of Captain 

 Cook's voyage around the world in 1772-1775, was another who 

 described (1778) transparent jelly-like spheres about the size of the 

 head of a pin, probably Noctiluca,^^ that were responsible for a 

 beautiful luminescence near the Cape of Good Hope. 



Four persons, M. J. Slabber in 1771, the Abbe Dicquemare (1733- 

 1789) professor of physics and natural history at Le Havre, in 1775, 

 J. G. Bruguiere ^^ in 1791 and J. Macartney in 1810, published the 

 earliest drawings of Noctiluca. There can be no mistake in recog- 

 nition, as can be seen from figure 39. Dicquemare sent his sketch 

 of Noctiluca to Rigaut, who assured him that it was the same or- 

 ganism responsible for the luminescence he had seen in 1765, 



Dicquemare also described and figured a luminous ctenophore in 

 1775 and later (1778) observed another great phosphorescence dis- 

 play along the shores near Le Havre, which led him to believe that 

 navigators might make use of the kind of luminous animal near the 

 ship to determine its position " as they now use the magnet." 



The names by which Noctiluca has been designated are numerous. 

 Forskal (1762) wrote of " Medusa noctiluca," while Martin Slabber 

 (1741-1835) , a Dutchman and friend of Baster, used the name, 

 " Medusa marina " in his book, Naturkundige Verlustigingen, Haar- 

 lem, 1771. Macartney (1810) called it " Medusa scintillans," L. 

 Oken ^° called it " Slabberia," and Ehrenberg (1834: 559) spoke of 

 " Mammaria scintillans." 



In 1816 Suriray, a physician at Le Harve, sent a manuscript to 

 Lamarck describing a small luminous medusa which he thought was 

 new, calling it Noctiluca miliaris. Lamarck (1816) included the 

 organism in his Systein des Animaux sans Vertebres (2: 470-472) 

 as Noctiluca miliaris Suriray, placing it near the ctenophore, Beroe. 

 Although the Suriray paper did not appear until 1836, the name 

 has survived from Lamarck's classification. In 1873 the great Ger- 



^' Many other travelers undoubtedly saw Noctiluca, for example, Captain C. New- 

 land (1772) in a trip from Mocha to Bombay, where spots of " white water " contain- 

 ing minute ammaculae were seen at night; Dombey (1780) observed " etincelles " off 

 Peru; Labillardiere (1791) , on a voyage around the world in the ship " Laperouse," 

 near " Guinee "; possibly A. von Humboldt during his voyage to the equinoctial re- 

 gions of America in the year 1799-1804. Finlayson (1826) was apparently the first to 

 describe a luminous green Noctiluca containing flagellate parasites. 



^* Figures 2 and 3 of plate 89 in the Encyclopedie Methodiqiie plates dealing with 

 " Helminthologie ou les vers infusoires " (1791) . O. Biitschli (1880-1882: 1031) thought 

 Brugi^re's figures of " Gleba " were copied from Slabber. 



^° L. Oken, Lehrbiich der Naturzeschichie (3rd part, abt 1) of the Lehrbuch der 

 Zoologie, Jena, 1815. 



