558 History of Luminescence 



found that it was worms which gave that Hght; they were rolled up in 

 round forms, " conglobulated," of the color of scarlet; no eyes, no wings, 

 no feet could be distinguished in them. I carried home a few of these 

 worms with a little of the earth on which they were, in order to enjoy 

 the light. I put them in a glass vial and obtained so much light from 

 them that I could use it to read and write for the period of a month. 

 But after that time light ceased in them together with life. One may 

 rightly enquire from what [source] they can produce such light. The 

 light would, I believe, arise from the very tenuous and extremely volatile 

 sulfurous and nitrous particles of air which the worms attracted and 

 concentrated in them. I observed a similar luminosity in the island of 

 Ceylon on scorpions ^^ subjected to a slight compression until some liquid 

 flew from them; this liquid then shows a sulfurous luminosity, an indica- 

 tion of its sulfureous, burning venom, so that if someone is struck by 

 these (animals) he feels as if he were really wounded with aqua fortis, 

 oil of sulfur or vitriol or by a cauterization. 



Another probable record of luminous earthworms is to be found 

 in the account of luminous peat given by Robert Plot (1640-1696) . 

 In his Natural History of Staffordshire (1686: 115) , Plot wrote that 

 on Archer moor near Berefford, " if one ride in a dark night in so 

 wet a season that a Horse breaks through the turf, and throws up 

 this black, moist spungy sort of earth, He seems to fling up so much 

 fire, which lyes shining upon the ground like so many embers.'' On 

 another occasion a Capt. Lane helped a friend of his, " who casually 

 fell into a ditch in Bescot grounds in the night time, and having 

 stirred the mud and dirt pretty much in performing that good 

 office; they presently found their gloves, bridles and horses, as far as 

 the water or dirt had touched them, all in a kind of faint flame, 

 much like that (as He described it) of burnt brandy, which con- 

 tinued upon them for a miles rideing." 



The account is usually considered to be an observation of lumi- 

 nous fungus mycelium which often makes dead leaves and damp 

 mould of forests luminous. However, the recent observation of 

 A. Harker (1888) suggests a different explanation. He noted that 

 footmarks on a peaty moor in Northumberland shone brilliantly 

 while horse's hoofs threw showers of white glowing fire. Harker 

 traced the luminescence to hundreds of small earthworms of the 

 genus Enchytreaeus. The descriptions of Plot and Harker sound so 

 much alike that the earthworm explanation seems highly plausible.^" 



^° Scorpions are not self-luminous. 



^"According to a personal communication from Y. Haneda (1955), a small species 

 of earthworm (Microscolex phosphoreus) was so abundant on a paved road near 

 Fukuoka, Kyushu, one cold rainy night that the soles of shoes of pedestrians and the 

 tires of bicycles and cars became brilliant in luminosity. 



