CHAPTER IV 



SOME BACTERIAL CURIOSITIES 



MOST travellers, and some people who 

 stay at home, too, have now and then 

 been mystified and delighted, when not 

 frightened, to see in the night-time that 

 wavering, cold, uncanny, but beautiful light, 

 sometimes tinged with the most exquisite 

 green or blue, which is commonly called phos- 

 phorescence. Sometimes it is seen in decay- 

 ing plants or wood; sometimes bays or inlets 

 of the sea are fairly luminous with it. The 

 surface of dead fish and of meat and various 

 kinds of vegetables often becomes so bright 

 as to illuminate the storage rooms in which 

 they lie. 



Some time since there was brought to the 

 laboratory for examination a cluster of sau- 

 sages which had been destined to grace a 



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