Shooting Star , seen in the Day-time . 169 
Hansteen concluded to be 44 a shooting star,” was nothing more 
than a bird winging its £ight towards the lower regions of the 
atmosphere, having that part of its body which was turned to 
the observer strongly illuminated by the solar rays. This opi- 
nion is confirmed by the account which M. Hansteen gives of 
the motion of the phenomenon which he observed. 44 Its mo- 
tion (says he), was neither perfectly equal nor rectilinear, but 
resembled very much the unequal and somewhat serpentine mo- 
tion of an ascending rocket,” — a kind of motion similar to that 
which appeared in the bodies alluded to above, and which cor- 
responds to the waving motion of a bird through the atmo- 
sphere. 
The late ingenious Mr B. Martin seems to have been de- 
ceived by a similar phenomenon, and to have drawn from it a 
conclusion .somewhat analogous to that of M. Hansteen. In his 
44 Philosophia Britannica,” vol. iii. pp. 85, 86, when describing 
the solar telescope, and the phenomena which may be exhibited 
in a dark chamber, he gives the following relation : 
44 I cannot here omit to mention a very unusual phenomenon 
that I observed about ten years ago in my darkened room. The 
window looked toward the west, and the spire of the Chichester 
Cathedral was directly before it, at the distance of about 50 or 
60 yards. I used very often to divert myself in observing the 
pleasant manner in which the sun passed behind the spire, and 
was eclipsed by it for some time ; for the image of the spire and 
sun were very large, being made by a lens of 12 feet focal dis- 
tance. And, once as I observed the occultation of the sun be- 
hind the spire, just as the disk disappeared, I saw several small , 
bright , round bodies or balls running towards the sun from the 
dark part of the room, even to the distance of 20 inches. I ob- 
served their motion was a little irregular , but rectilinear, and 
seemed accelerated as they approached the sun. These lumi- 
nous globules appeared also on the other side of the spire, and 
preceded the sun, running out into the dark room, sometimes 
more sometimes less together, in the same manner as they fol- 
lowed the sun at its occultation. They appeared to be in gene- 
ral about ^th of an inch in diameter, and therefore must be 
very large luminous globes in some part of the heavens, whose 
light was extinguished by that of the sun ; so that they appeared 
