sonie Manne Invertebrata. 17 



the phosphorescence of the sea to a Nereis ; Shaw, to certain 

 flexible zoophytes, &c. 



French naturahsts have not been behind in this movement. 

 In 1764, Rigaut discovered and described in an unmistakeable 

 manner the Noctiluca of Suriray ; it is to them that he attributes 

 the phosphorescence of the British Chaimel and Atlantic Ocean. 

 The Abbe Dicquemare, by researches in the harbour of Havre, 

 confirmed the first results, which, forgotten for a time, were again 

 corroborated by the labours of Suriray at the same locality. The 

 learned hydrographical engineer, M. de Tessan, rediscovered the 

 Noctilucfe, or animals very similar, in the seas of the Cape of 

 Good Hope, at False Bay*. M. Rang mentions their presence 

 on the coast of Algiers f- More recently M. Verhaeghe has been 

 led by his investigations at OstendJ to the same conclusions as 

 Dicquemare and Suriray. 



The assertion of Rigaut was manifestly exaggerated ; the Noc- 

 tilucse are not alone in producing this phsenomenon. The lumi- 

 nous properties of various Med usee have been established beyond 

 doubt by the testimony of Peron, ^Macartney, Tilesius, Banks, 

 Forskal, Humboldt, Ehrenberg, Rathke, &c. Peron and Le- 

 sueur, Humboldt, and others after them, have described with en- 

 thusiasm the magnificent spectacle presented by shoals of Pyro- 

 somas, which in the dark look like streams of fused metal. Hen- 

 derson ascribed the light of the Gulf of Guinea principally to the 

 Scyllari and to Salpas§. Certain Acalephs, Mollusca, Crustacea, 

 Annelids, Rotatoria, Lumbrici, Turbellarise, Echinoderms, Zoo- 

 phytes and Infusoria have been successively pointed out as ca- 

 pable of phosphorescence ; and if we do not here go into more 

 detail on this point, it is because the subject has been so fully 

 treated by Ehrenberg. In the work which the illustrious Secre- 

 tary of the Berlin Academy has devoted to the phosphorescence 

 of the sea, he has enumerated 450 authors who have treated 

 more or less fully of the production of light by organized beings ; 

 and to this memoir we refer those readers who are curious to 

 understand thoroughly the history of the question y. AVe annex 

 a table, cited almost entire from M. Van Benedcn, in which are 



* Comptes Rendus Je 1' Academic des Sciences, 1840. Rapport fait par 

 M. ^Vrago. 



t Cited from Gervais, by M. Van Beneden. 



X Report of M. Van Beneden on the memoir of Dr. Verhaeghe, entitled 

 " Recherches sur la cause de la phosphorescence de la mer dans les parages 

 d'Osteude" (Bulletin de I'Academie Rovale de Belgique, t. xiii, par. 2. p. 3. 

 1846). 



§ Cited by M. Van Beneden. 



II Das Leuchten des Meeres (Abhandl. der Konigl. Akademie der Wiss, 

 zu Berlin, 1834). 



Ann. i^ Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 2. Vol.\n. 2 



