Animal Luminescence 557 



existence of innate light among many creatures and spoke of pro- 

 ducing a future light sufficient to read by and " glorified by the sepa- 

 ration of light from fire." Francis Willoughby (1635-1672), the 

 associate of Ray, had also seen them. When S. Reisel (1688) de- 

 scribed luminescence on a stone drain where he had urinated, it is 

 very likely that the light came from a luminous centipede disturbed 

 by the urine. 



Luminous centipedes were well known to zoologists of the 

 eighteenth century also, observed and mentioned by Reaumur 

 (1723: 204) in his work on Pholas as " d'especes asses communes 

 qui brilloient au moins autant que le Vers luisants," and by Thomas 

 Shaw (1738) during his travels to Barbary and the Levant. In the 

 tenth edition of Systema Naturae (1758) , the edition which inaugu- 

 rated the consistent use of the binomial system, two species are de- 

 scribed— Scolopendra electrica " lucet in tenebris manifeste " and 

 S. phosphorea of Asia " noctu instar Lampyridis ignita ex alto coelo 

 decidua in novam." The latter, which glows at night like a 1am- 

 pyrid, was found by the Swedish sea captain, Eckeberg, in a voyage 

 to India and apparently " fell fiom the heavens." The captain 

 informed Linnaeus of the event and the animal was described. 

 Macartney (1810) referred to the luminous secretion of centipedes, 

 as have many others since then. 



Chemical studies of myriapod luminescence were first undertaken 

 by R. Dubois (1886, 1893) , who described fine granules (vacuo- 

 lides) in the secretion which he observed to change into crystals. 



Another group of myriapods, the millipedes, can also produce a 

 light not due to luminous bacteria, but their discovery is very recent, 

 a species of Spirobolellus by Y. Haneda (1939) and a Luminodesmus 

 by D. Davenport et al. {Biol Bull. 102: 100, 1952) . 



Earthworms 



Discovery of luminous terrestrial earthworms is usually attributed 

 to Herman Nicholas Grimm (1641-1711) , a Swedish physician who 

 traveled in Sumatra. In a short note " Vermes Rari Lucentes " in 

 the Miscellanea Curiosa for 1682, Grimm described what he had 

 once 1670) seen in Coromandel,^' southwest India. He wrote: ^^ 

 " Having often stayed in forests to investigate rarities. ... I [once] 

 noticed something luminous in the dark night and delighted in the 

 sight of so remarkable a thing. ..." At daybreak, Grimm 



^■^ Professor G. E. Gates, an authority on Oligochaetes of India, informs me that 

 scarlet earthworms are found in Coromandel but luminous species have not been 

 recorded from that region. 



^^ Kindly translated by B. Luyet. A figure, worthless for reproduction, accompanied 

 the article. 



