DEAD ANIMAL MATTER. 109 



hasty increase of light that disclosed itself in the 

 veal upon admitting the air into the exhausted 

 receiver, it appeared that the decrement, though 

 slowly made, had been considerable." The lumi- 

 nosity of flesh generally lasts about four days, 

 after which putrefaction sets in rapidly. 



A peculiar mucilaginous substance, or mucus, 

 is sometimes seen about spring, on the damp 

 ground near rivulets or stagnant pools in the 

 fields, which, from the circumstance of its being 

 occasionally phosphorescent at night, has been 

 regarded, since the middle ages, as having some 

 connection with shooting stars. The Belgian pea- 

 sants call it " the substance of shooting stars." 



I have sketched the history of this curious sub- 

 stance in the ' Journal de Medecine et de Pharma- 

 cologie' of Bruxelles, for 1855. It was analysed 

 chemically by Mulder, and anatomically by Carus, 

 and from their observations appears to be the pe- 

 culiar mucus which envelops the eggs of the frog. 

 It swells to an enormous volume when it has free 

 access to water. As seen upon the damp ground 

 in spring, it was often mistaken for some species 

 of fungus; it is however simply the spawn cf 

 frogs, which has been swallowed by some large 

 crows or other birds, and afterwards vomited, 

 from its peculiar property of swelling to an im- 

 mense size in their bodies. From the fact of this 

 mucilaginous matter having been sometimes ob- 



