ANTHOZOA HYDEOIDA. 95 



The late truly amiable Dr. Neill knew it. He told me 

 that more than twenty years before that period, having laid 

 some zoophytes out of his vasculum in the lobby till he 

 had time to make some experiments with them, one of his 

 maid-servants, after it was dark, having come across them 

 roughly, was almost frightened out of her wits by the sudden 

 flashes, thinking that Will-o'-the-wisp had sprung up among 

 her fingers. 



As I find that I generally write more con amore on a 

 subject when it is new to me, and when, in my ignorance, 

 I may think that perchance it is not very familiar to others, 

 I may, perhaps, be pardoned for transcribing a portion of 

 what I wrote for a periodical more than ten years ago. 

 "Having brought from the shore, in a vasculum, some 

 zoophytes, I laid them aside till I should have leisure to 

 examine them. When the evening came I was beginning 

 in the dark to take them out of the vasculum, when, to my 

 surprise and delight, they began to sparkle. Recollecting 

 what T had read in Dr. Johnston's ' History of British 

 Zoophytes' respecting the phosphorescence of Sertularia 

 pumila, I gave them, as I removed them from the vasculum, 

 a hearty shake, and they instantly became quite brilliant, 

 like strings of little stars or precious diamonds. To ascer- 



