NOTES AND QUERIES. 117 



ANNELIDES. 

 Phosphorescence of Syllis.— During the month of December, 1883, 

 immense quantities of Corallines were thrown up on the beach at Lang- 

 stone Point, near Dawlish, and also near Exmouth. There were Hterally 

 cart-loads of them, as remarked by Mr. C. W. Parker, of Warren Cottage, 

 Starcross, who showed me a mass he had brought up from the beach into 

 his study, and which displayed beautiful phosphorescent particles in the daik. 

 The greater part of the mass consisted of Sertularla abieteria, much finer 

 and larger than I ever before saw it on this coast; but several other species 

 of Coralhnes were mixed up with it. On examination the luminous spots 

 were found to be individuals of a small species of Syllis, living in trans- 

 parent membranaceous tubes closely adherent to the Sertularia by their 

 whole length, but some of the worms had left their habitations and were 

 wandering about the Corallines. When the mass was shaken up flashes of 

 light were seen in all directions, and it then resembled a handful of moss 

 filled with glow-worms. The brilliant blue light was quite under the 

 control of the animals whilst alive, and was only shown when they were 

 disturbed or touched. The light played up and down the whole length of 

 the body, and if a worm was crushed on the fingers the luminous particles 

 adhered to them like phosphorus. Some of the worms lived for many 

 days after being brought into the house, Fresh water did not extinguish 

 their light, but diluted spirits did so very quickly. — W. S. M. D'Ueban 

 (Albert Memorial Museum, Exeterj. 



ARCHEOLOGY. 

 "The Sea-blue Bird of March."— This passage in Tennyson's 'In 

 Memoriam,' &c., has long puzzled commentators, though all were agreed 

 that it referred to the Kinufishei-. In ' The Academy' for J'ebruary 16th, 

 p. 114, Professor Whitley Stokes has traced the phrase to a fragment of 

 Alcmau, the Spartan lyric poet, who flourished about the year 650 b.c, 

 where he calls the halcyon aXiTroptpypo; eVapo; opn'?, the sea-purple bird of 

 Spring. The preservation of these lines of Alcman, by Antigonus of 

 Carystus, is due to their embodying one of the many myths about the King- 

 fisher, viz. that the males (especially called y.y,fvXoi, whence Bole's Ceryle), 

 when their parents were too old to fly, carried them about upon their winas. 

 The epithet " of Spring" is not quite clear, for the famous "halcyon days,'' 

 when the sea was fabled to be calm for a fortnight while the Kingfishers built 

 their nests, were always said by the ancients to occur in winter. Aristotle, 

 the chief authority for this legend, expressly says that "birds generally pair 

 in the spring and summer, except the halcyon. This bird," he continues, 

 " hatches its young about the time of the winter solstice." But the poet,' 

 though he wrote some three centuries before the philosopher, may have 

 wished to correct the current improbable belief.- Henry T. Wharton. 



