1878.] The Senses of the Lower Animals. 295 
But we have not yet done with phosphorescence. The 
question has often been asked why certain nocturnal animals 
seem greatly afraid of fires, torches, &c., whilst others, on 
the very contrary, are attracted by a light, and seek eagerly 
to plunge into it to their own destruction ? One explanation 
proposed is that the candle or torch seems to the soaring 
moth an opening, or way of “escape,” to which it accord- 
ingly rushes. “ Escape ?” we ask ; wherefore, or from 
what ? Why should the nocturnal inseCt which carefully 
shuns the daylight feel less at home in the fields or gardens 
by night than does the bee or the butterfly by day ? An 
anonymous writer in “Hardwick’s Science Gossip”* suggests 
what seems to be the true explanation. Many flowers are, 
even to our eyes, phosphorescent ; to the vision of moths, 
&c., many more, if not all, possess this property, which 
serves to entice night-flying inseCts. Such creatures, at- 
tracted by what to them is the usual announcement of 
honey, make towards the flame, and then on nearer 
approach become dazzled and bewildered by its superior 
and unaccustomed intensity and perish in their confusion. 
Has this any connection with the fascination which a white 
cloth spread upon the ground or hung upon a tree seems to 
have for noCturnal inseCts ? 
It has been urged in objection that inseCts of carnivorous 
habits— -amphibians, fishes, and even certain birds— are 
attracted by a light. Owls and nightjars have been known 
to flutter against the window of a lighted room in the 
“ small hours.” When sickness has been the cause of the 
unwonted lamp or candle, such visits have been regarded 
with superstitious dread. Fishes are allured to a light 
allowed to float along the stream or placed on the bank, a 
circumstance which has been taken advantage of for spear- 
ing salmon, both by poachers in the Scottish rivers and by 
the Red Indians in the streams of Oregon and British 
Columbia. A light held near to the side of a fresh-water 
aquarium by night brought newts, water-scorpions, and 
water-boatmen to the glass. 
But all these faCts, so far from refuting the hypothesis 
that moths are guided to flowers by a phosphorescent light 
seem to us merely to indicate the necessity for its further 
extension. What if phosphorescence is a very general 
attribute of organisms, living or dead, and if those animals 
which are specially attracted by a light possess eyes suffi- 
ciently sensitive for its recognition ? 
* Vol. v. p. 138. 
