180 PHOSPHORESCENCE. 



Quatrefages, the light of glowworms is a pheno- 

 menon of combustion such, at least, was the 

 opinion of these philosophers when their observa- 

 tions were published. 



According to De Quatrefages and Professor 

 Ehrenberg, the light of the Noctiluca is an electric 

 phenomenon. Ehrenberg has discovered in a little 

 marine worm, Photocharis cyrrigera, that which 

 appears to him the organ of phosphorescence. He 

 thinks also, that those small elevations which we 

 observe upon the bodies of Noctiluca, when highly 

 magnified, are so many phosphoric organs; so 

 that it seems evident, at present, that wherever 

 phosphorescence is observed in animals, there 

 exists a special organ destined to fulfil this func- 

 tion. 



