42 MEMOIR III. 



factory to know tliat some new animals of this tribe 

 (Ostracoda) have been detected in our own seas and will 

 be made known in some future Memoir. Riville describes 

 the phosphorescence as residing in what he calls a blueish 

 liquor, which exuded from the animal, giving the same 

 luminous appearance to the water, and which lasted seve- 

 ral days ; but on due examination, this blue matter was 

 found to be a moveable congeries of globules, lodged within 

 the posterior part of the shell of the animal, of a blue 

 colour, but which became yellowish and dark as the ani- 

 mal approached its end ; these globules Latreille imagines 

 to have been its eggs. 



To the above may be added the testimony of Captain Hors- 

 burgh, (as it relates in all probability to the same animal,) 

 as extracted from the notes he gave to Sir Joseph Bankes. 

 "There is (says he) a peculiar phenomenon sometimes seen 

 within a few degrees distance of the coast of Malabar, du- 

 ring the rainy Monsoon, which I had an opportunity of 

 observing at midnight : the weather was cloudy and the sea 

 was particularly dark, when suddenly it changed to a white 

 flaming colour all around. Tliis bore no resemblance to 

 the sparkling or glowing appearance I had observed on 

 other occasions in seas near the equator, but was a regular 

 white colour, like milk, and did not continue more than 

 ten minutes. A similar phenomenon, (he adds) is fre- 

 quently seen in the Banda sea," &c. (Professor Macartney 

 Philos. Trans. 1810.) More lately this appearance has been 

 noticed by Captain Tuckey. "After passing Cape Palmas and 

 entering the gulf of Guinea, the sea appeared of a whitish 

 colour, which encreased together with its luminosity until 

 making Prince's Island, so that at night the ship seemed 

 to be sailing in a sea of milk. To discover its cause a bag 

 of bunting, its mouth extended by a hoop, was kept over- 

 board and collected vast numbers of animals of various 

 kinds particularly pellucid Salpse with innumerable little 

 crustaceous animals of theScyllarusGenus(Squill£e)attached 



