£6 Observations upon Luminous Animals, 
filled with them; he remarked that the light resided prin- 
cipally in the posterior part of the body*. 
Flaugergucs pretended to have seen earthworms luminous 
in three instances: It was at each time in October; the 
body shone at every part, but most brilliantly at the genital 
organs f. Pee 
Notwithstanding this concurrence of testimony, it is next 
to impossible, that animals so frequently before our eyes as_ 
the common earthworms should be endowed with so re- 
markable a property, without every person having observed 
it. Tf they only enjoyed it during, the season for copula- 
tion, still it could not have escaped notice, as these creatures 
re usually found joined together in the most frequented 
paths, and in garden walks. 
In different systems of natural history, the property of 
shining is attributed to the cancer pulex. The authorities 
for this opinion are Hablitzl, and Thules and Bernard. The 
former observed, upon one occasion, acable that was drawn 
up from the sea exhibit light, which upon closer inspection 
was perceived to be covered by these insects t: Thules and 
Bernard reported that they met with anumker of this species 
of cancer on the borders of a river, entirely luminous §, » I 
am neverthcless disposed to question the luminous property 
of the cancer pulex, as I have often had the: animal in my 
possession, and never perceived it emit any light. 
The account given by Linneeus of the scolopendra phos- 
phorea is so unprobable and inconsistent, that one might 
be led to coubt this insect’s existence, particularly as it does 
not appear to have been ever seen, except by Ekeberg, the 
captain of an East Indiaman, from whom Linnzeus learnt 
its history. 
I now proceed to the description of those luminous ani- 
mals that have been discovered by the Right Honourable Sir 
Joseph Banks, Captain Horsburg, and myself. 
On the passage from Madeira to Rio de Janeiro, the sea 
was observed by Sir Josepb Banks to be unusually luminous, 
flashing in many parts like lightning. He directed some 
‘of the water to be hauled up, in which he discovered two 
kinds of animals that occasioned the phaznomenon, the 
one, a.crustaceous insect which he called the cancer fulgens ; 
the other, a large species of nedusa, to which he gave the 
name of pellucens, 
* Journal d@ Histoire Natirelle, tome ti. + Journal de Physique, tome xvi. 
+ Heblital ap. Pall. n, Nord. Beytr.4, p. S98, 
§ Journal de Physique, tome xxviii. 
‘The 
