368 Scientific Intelligence — Zoology. 



plain olive-yellow tint of the specimen that had spent four and 

 twenty hours on my table. — [A Naturalist's Rambles on the Devon- 

 shire Coast, by P. H. Gorre, p. 42.) 



1 2. Coralline Light. — The common coralline, if held to the flame 

 of a candle, burns with a most vivid white light. If we take a 

 shoot and let it dry, and then present the tips to the flame, just at 

 the very edge, not putting them into the fire, the ends of the shoot 

 will become red first, snapping and flying offwith a crackling noise ; 

 some, however, will retain their integrity, and these will presently 

 become white hot, and glow with an intensity of light most beauti- 

 ful and dazzling, as long as they remain at the very edge of the 

 flame ; for the least removal of the coralline, either by pulling it 

 away, or by pushing it in, destroys the whiteness. It will however 

 return when again brought to the edge. The same tips will dis- 

 play the phenomenon as often as you please. I did not find the 

 incrusting lamina that spreads over the rock before the shoots 

 rise, shew the light so well as the shoots. 



The brilliant light obtained by directing a stream of oxygen gas 

 upon a piece of lime in a state of combustion occurred to my mind 

 as a parallel fact, and I experimented with other forms of the 

 same substance. The polypidoms of Cellularia avicularia, and of 

 Eueratea chelata, one of the stony plates of Caryophyllia, and a 

 fragment of oyster shell, I successively placed in the flame, and 

 all gave out the dazzling white light exactly as the coralline had 

 done. The horny polypidom of a Sertularia, on the other hand, 

 shrivelled to a cinder. — [A Naturalist's Rambles on the Devonshire 

 Coast, by P. H. Gorre, p. 226.) 



13. Aurora Borealis. — Mr W. J. M. Rankine announces, that 

 he has on several nights examined the light of the aurora borealis 

 with a Nichol's prism, and has never detected any trace of polar- 

 ization. The same light reflected from the surface of a river was 

 polarized, shewing that his failing to detect polarization in the 

 direct light of the aurora was not owing to its faintness. This fact 

 is adverse to the idea that the light of the aurora is reflected light. 

 — (American Journal of Science and Arts, vol. xvi., 2d Series, 

 No. 46, p. 148.) 



ZOOLOGY. 



9. On the Structure and Economy of Tethea, and on an unde- 

 scribed species from the Spitzbergen Seas ; by Professor Goodsir. — 

 The author, after a brief summary of the observations of Donati, M. 

 Edwards, Forbes, Johnston, and Huxley, on various species of 

 Tethea. described the structure, and deduced the probable economy 

 of a large species apparently undescribed, some specimens of 

 which he had procured from the Spitzbergen Seas. 



