1533.] PHOSPHORESCENCE OF THE SEA. it? 



which in some respects is allied to the Notopods (or those crabs which 

 have their posterior legs placed almost on their backs, for the purpose 

 of adhering to the under side of rocks), is very remarkable from the 

 structure of its hind pair of legs. The penultimate joint, instead of 

 terminating in a simple claw, ends in three bristle-like appendages of 

 dissimilar lengths the longest equalling that of the entire leg. These 

 claws are very thin, and are serrated with the finest teeth, directed 

 backwards ; their curved extremities are flattened, and on this part 

 five most minute cups are placed which seem to act in the same 

 manner as the suckers on the arms of the cuttle-fish. As the animal 

 lives in the open sea, and probably wants a place of rest, I suppose 

 this beautiful and most anomalous structure is adapted to take hold 

 of floating marine animals. 



In deep water, far from the land, the number of living creatures is 

 extremely small: south of the latitude 35, I never succeeded in 

 catching anything besides some beroe, and a few species of minute 

 entomostracous Crustacea. In shoaler water, at the distance of a few 

 miles from the coast, very many kinds of Crustacea and some other 

 animals are numerous, but only during the night. Between latitudes 

 56 and 57 south of Cape Horn, the net was put astern several times ; 

 it never, however, brought up anything besides a few of two extremely 

 minute species of Entomostraca. Yet whales and seals, petrels and 

 albatross, are exceedingly abundant throughout this part of the ocean. 

 It has always been a mystery to me on what the albatross, which lives 

 far from the shore, can subsist ; I presume that, like the condor, it is 

 able to fast long ; and that one good feast on the carcass of a putrid 

 whale lasts for a long time. The central and inter-tropical parts of 

 the Atlantic swarm with Pteropoda, Crustacea, and Radiata, and with 

 their devourers the flying-fish, and again with their devourers the 

 bonitos and albicores ; I presume that the numerous lower pelagic 

 animals feed on the Infusoria, which are now known, from the 

 researches of Ehrenberg, to abound in the open ocean ; but on what, 

 in the clear blue water, do these Infusoria subsist ? 



While sailing a little south of the Plata on one very dark night, the 

 sea presented a wonderful and most beautiful spectacle. There was 

 a fresh breeze, and every part of the surface, which during the day 

 is seen as foam, now glowed with a pale light. The vessel drove before 

 her bows two billows of liquid phosphorus, and in her wake she was 

 followed by a milky train. As far as the eye reached, the crest of 

 every wave was bright, and the sky above the horizon, from the re- 

 flected glare of these livid flames, was not so utterly obscure as over 

 the vault of the heavens. 



As we proceed further southward the sea is seldom phosphorescent ; 

 and off Cape Horn I do not recollect more than once having seen it so, 

 and then it was far from being brilliant. This circumstance probably 

 has a close connection with the scarcity of organic beings in that part 

 of the ocean. After the elaborate paper * by Ehrenberg, on the 

 phosphorescence of the sea, it is almost superfluous on my part to 



* An abstract is given in No. IV. of the Magazine of Zoology and Botany, 



