B 3 1DM 003 
 
 MBI 
 


RESEARCHES 
 
 IN 
 
 NATURAL HISTORY. 
 
 6econT) dBTution* 
 
 - Equidem credo, quia sit divinitus illis 
 Tngenium. VIRG. 
 
 BY JOHN MURRAY, 
 
 F.S.A. F.L.S. F.H.S. F.G.S. &c. &c. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 WHITTAKER, TREACHER, AND ARNOT, 
 
 AVE-MARIA-LAKE. 
 1830. 
 
* LONDON : 
 
 Printed by A. & R. Spottiswoode, 
 New-Street- Square. 
 
TO 
 
 PATRICK NEILL, ESQ. 
 
 F.R.S.E. F.S.S.A. F.L.S. F.H.S. &c. &c. 
 EDINBURGH, 
 
 INSCRIBED 
 
 TO RECORD THE AUTHOR*S 
 ESTEEM. 
 
 JUNE, MDCCCXXX. 
 
 A 2 
 
 M375483 
 
PREFACE 
 
 TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 THIS volume is a new edition, or rather a new work, 
 and fraught, it is hoped, with renewed interest, from 
 the increased number of facts and recorded phenomena. 
 Much has been expunged that was, on reflection, pre- 
 sumed to belong more naturally to another branch of 
 science, or at least made the question too complex and 
 abstruse ; such as the preliminary remarks on Light, 
 which might generally be supposed extraneous and 
 irrelevant. Subsequent researches and more ex- 
 tended experiments have also enabled me to modify 
 and enlarge my remarks, or fortify and confirm my 
 previous conclusions. 
 
 The least agreeable part of my task is to combat the 
 opinions of those from whom I differ. I allude here to 
 the paper of Mr. Black wall in the Linnean Transac- 
 tions on the ascent of the gossamer spider, and the 
 subsequent controversy to which it gave rise, and to 
 Mr. Rennie's Remarks in " Insect Architecture." 
 My views on the principles by which the gossamer 
 spider effects its ascent, possessed as they were of 
 novelty, and published long before Mr. Blackwall had 
 ever turned his attention to the subject, could not be 
 expected to run the gauntlet of public opinion without 
 scrutiny, and accordingly they have been canvassed 
 and questioned. I trust it will be found that the facts 
 A 3 
 
vi 
 
 are honestly stated, and the opposite opinion weighed 
 without prejudice in the balance of induction. As 
 regards myself, the more I extend my observations 
 the more fixed and settled is my conviction. Should 
 the agitation of this very curious subject excite others 
 to the enquiry (and it seems to have already roused 
 M. Virey in France), it will accomplish something; 
 and should future investigation prove me in error, I 
 shall cheerfully acknowledge my mistake ; my con- 
 clusions may ultimately be found incorrect, but the 
 registered facts will still remain the same. Unfettered 
 by any hypothesis or preconceived opinion, I shall 
 continue my researches and pursue my experiments. 
 In order to afford a better illustration of some of the 
 luminous animals, terrene as well as marine, described, 
 and a phenomenon connected with the flight of the 
 spider, a plate has now been added to the volume, 
 from the lithographic press of Mr. Hullmandel. 
 
 What has been withdrawn is substituted by new 
 and interesting matter obtained from various sources, 
 intermixed with details of original research and remark: 
 in the disposal of these accumulated materials I have 
 endeavoured to be select, and as little diffuse as pos- 
 sible. In reference to the phosphorescence of the 
 ocean, I confess myself under considerable obligations 
 to Mr. Thompson's curious and original " Zoological 
 Researches," a work that bears in addition to its other 
 interesting qualifications the evidence of much industry. 
 To its ingenious author we owe the discovery of that 
 " rara avis" the pentacrinus europceus, found in a living 
 form in the Cove of Cork. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Page 
 
 Introduction. Preliminary Remarks on the Tone and Tem- 
 per of modern Science. Introductory Works on Science. 
 
 Aspect of Nomenclature, and its Mutability. - - 1 
 
 CHAP. II. 
 
 The Chameleon. Introductory Remarks. Various Opinions. 
 
 Phenomena of Change, by various Observers. Dif- 
 ferent Deductions. The Temperature of the changing 
 Shades and Spots adduced as a Proof of their Dependence 
 
 on Circulation. Analogical Phenomena. - - - 8 
 
 CHAP. III. 
 
 Ascent of the Spider. Importance of the Minutiae of Crea- 
 tion. Curious Habits of peculiar Spiders. Ascent of 
 the Spider observed. General Remarks connected with 
 it. The Ascent considered an electric Phenomenon. - 26 
 
 CHAP. IV. 
 
 Ascent of the Spider continued. Gossamer the Work of 
 the Spider. Necessity of Descent, &c. Propulsion of 
 Threads. Conjoined Opinion of Mr. Blackwall and Mr. 
 Rennie. The Mechanical Impulse of aerial Currents 
 questionable as to Efficiency. Ascent into the Atmo- 
 sphere ascribed by Mr. Blackwall to the Impulsion of 
 heated Emanations from the Ground. Facts that seem to 
 controvert this Opinion. Former Views reiterated. 
 Beneficent Purpose subserved by their Ascent. - 41 
 
 CHAP. V. 
 
 Sublimity of the Ocean. Its Population. Phosphorescence 
 of the Sea. Experiments with luminous Salt Water. 
 
Vlll 
 
 Page 
 
 Luminosity of the Baltic. Increased Brilliancy a Pre- 
 sage of the Storm. Some British luminous Molluscse 
 discriminated. Peculiar luminous Effects described by 
 Navigators. - -'!.. J - - - - 59 
 
 CHAP. VI. 
 
 Phosphorescence of the Ocean continued. Various Sources 
 of Light connected with Marine Animals. Luminous 
 Sea Weed. Luminous Testacea. Specific Differences 
 in the Phosphorescence of the Ocean. Various Animals 
 contributing to this Luminosity. This Investment of 
 Light a beneficent Provision. - - 70 
 
 CHAP. VII. 
 
 Torpidity. General Remarks. Torpidity of Insects. The 
 Ant. Siren Lacertina. Marmot. Distinctive Features 
 of Torpidity, and Remarks in Illustration. Inductive 
 Conclusions. - - 79 
 
 CHAP. VIII. 
 
 The Testudo Grseca, or Common Tortoise. An Account of 
 that in the Palace Garden at Peterborough. Additional 
 Particulars. The Dormouse. - - 94 
 
 CHAP. IX. 
 
 Migration of Birds Swallow Submersion and Migration. 
 
 The Cuckoo. The Stork. The Nightingale Starlings 
 
 on their Return from Migration. Migration in the Insect 
 World. Butterflies. The Locust. Contemporaneous 
 Phenomena. Instinct. Conclusion. - - - 102 
 
 CHAP. X. 
 
 Light emitted from Vegetation. Exotic Luminous Insects, 
 Pausus Sphaeroceros, and others. Elater Noctilucus. 
 Fulgora Lanternaria and Candelaria. Indian Grosbeak. 
 Lampyris Noctiluca, or Glow-worm, Habits, &c. 
 Lampyris Italica. - - - - - - -119 
 
IX 
 
 CHAP. XI. 
 
 Page 
 
 The Glow-worm. Opinions on the Luminous Matter of 
 Insects. That of the Glow-worm, and Cause of its 
 Exhibition. Phenomena on its Introduction, and that of 
 the Insect, into various Media. Our Experiments and 
 Conclusions. Dr. Carus's Discovery. To what Purpose 
 subservient. Conclusion. - - - - - 132 
 
DESCRIPTION OF THE PLATE. 
 
 FIG. 1 . Fulgora lanternaria, one third its natural size. 
 FIG. 2. Fulgora candelaria, less than the natural size. 
 FIG. 3. Pausus sph&roceros, magnified. 
 FIG. 4. Lampyris noctiluca, male and female. 
 
 FIG. 5. Cancer fulgens of Sir Joseph Banks (Noctiluca Ban km 
 of Thompson), magnified. 
 
 FIG. 6. Sappharina indicator of Mr. Thompson, magnified. 
 
 FIG. 7. Pyrosoma pygmea of Mr. Thompson, magnified. 
 
 FIG. 8. Phenomenon in the ascent of the " Gossamer Spider." 
 
RESEARCHES 
 
 IN 
 
 NATURAL HISTORY. 
 
 CHAP. I. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. PRELIMINARY REMARKS ON THE 
 
 TONE AND TEMPER OF MODERN SCIENCE. INTRO- 
 DUCTORY WORKS ON SCIENCE. ASPECT OF NOMEN- 
 CLATURE, AND ITS MUTABILITY. 
 
 NATURAL History is now much cultivated among us, 
 and its study seems eminently calculated to soothe 
 the mind and soften the affections of the heart, virtues 
 that will not flourish amid the abstract mathematical 
 sciences, though we would not be understood to decry 
 their worth and underrate their usefulness. Both 
 sexes, and every age, may enjoy this pursuit, and make 
 their election of that which is most congenial to each. 
 Healthful pleasures are attendants in her train : we 
 are not trammelled by the mechanism of art, wearied 
 by the sedentary labours of the closet, or suffocated 
 by the fumes of the laboratory : " we walk," as Sir 
 J. E. Smith has expressed it, " with God in the garden 
 of creation, and hold converse with his providence ; " 
 and this feeling will be equally enjoyed, whether we 
 " consider the lilies of the field how they grow," or 
 B 
 
contemplate the more complex forms of the higher 
 links of organised existence. There is wonder every 
 where excited in this world of wonders. 
 
 The tone in which scientific truths are now pro- 
 mulgated is also changed for the better. In its inves- 
 tigations, the mind seems to have become much more 
 independent, less the slave of authority, and less obe- 
 dient to the trammels of system and the idol-worship 
 of a name. The days of its alchymy have passed away, 
 and the hermetic seal is broken ; we hope these days of 
 darkness will never return. The modulation of scientific 
 literature has now a more musical charm, and reaches 
 the heart, as well as informs the head. The style and 
 feeling displayed in such works as these, " Salmonia," 
 "Journal of a Naturalist," and the " British Naturalist," 
 remind us forcibly of the good old times of Eveyln 
 and Walton, Derham and Ray, and, last not least, the 
 amiable philosopher of Selborne. We think that 
 one obvious cause of this welcome acceptance will be 
 found in the rightful appeal that is made to the BEING 
 who made them all, and which vibrates through "their 
 pages like a silver chord a key-note unhappily over- 
 looked or forgotten by our modern philosophers, with 
 whom scepticism and infidelity seemed almost essential 
 to complete the character, and an occasional sneer at 
 Revelation the truest passport to their " Atalantis." 
 HE "who rideth on the whirlwind, and directs the 
 storm," and whose " still small voice" is ever " heard 
 among the trees of the garden," and the fiat of 
 creation, was to them " an idle tale that they believed 
 not," though the golden link that suspends its har- 
 monies. This unbelief proved a treacherous abandon- 
 ment of the principles under which they professed to be 
 enlisted, which the event has shown to be repulsive to the 
 best features of the true philosophy of the human mind. 
 
It has been tried in the balance, and found essentially 
 wanting. We are no friends either to puerile send 
 mentalism or morbid morality; but, "believing it in 
 our hearts, shall we be ashamed to confess it? Shall 
 we deny the wisdom of our Maker, because he is all 
 wise ; or his power, because he is all powerful ? Shall 
 we respect the works and contemn the Maker ? " * 
 
 Another cause impeded the progress of knowledge : 
 her books were sealed with the impress of tech- 
 nical terms, and contained words formed of inflexible 
 materials ; so that an interdict was imposed on nine- 
 tenths of those who would have willingly and gladly 
 consulted them, who would have read them, but could 
 not, and thus the readings of creation in the writings 
 of genius were as unintelligible to the general reader, 
 as the hieroglyphic symbols of aboriginal Egypt. 
 Science has now assumed a more popular form, and 
 numerous are the attempts to 
 
 " Robe fair Science in a pleasing garb, 
 Then lead the young to view her." 
 
 All this is laudable, and must tend to promote human 
 happiness. The fountain of this department of know- 
 ledge never sends forth the " waters of Marah : " it is 
 a copious source, and, like that of its almighty Author, 
 ever flowing, and yet ever full. The tree of know- 
 ledge is not, indeed, the tree of life ; but they flourish 
 in the same Eden ; both were planted by the same hand, 
 and are watered by the river of " Araby the blest." 
 Sir H. Davy says, " The tree of knowledge is grafted 
 on the tree of life : " we think them different. In 
 Botany, and Entomology, and the higher departments 
 of Zoology, the entire descriptive formularies are in 
 
 * British Naturalist. 
 B 2 
 
the language of the Latins; not in its purest form, or 
 the classic elegance of ancient Rome, (for that were 
 some relief,) but a mere scholastic display of barbarous 
 Latinity, something like the prescriptions of the phy- 
 sician, containing a series of mystic and free-masonry 
 signs to the initiated apothecary; and, in consulting 
 them, we shall but too readily perceive that it indeed 
 falls to the lot of few to write with the classic diction 
 of a Gregory. In saying thus much, we would not 
 be understood to declaim against system or nomen- 
 clature, as we are decided advocates for both ; indeed, 
 it is not easy to perceive how science could make 
 any progress without them : but the language of 
 nomenclature should be wisely fixed, and, when once 
 universally admitted, should be suffered to remain 
 undisturbed ; science is now likely to suffer wrong, 
 from an extraordinary propensity in this direction : 
 an arbitrary change of terms is now the unhappy 
 temper of the fashion of the day, restless for some- 
 thing new, even in the sound of a novel name : 
 
 " A rose 
 By any other name would smell as sweet ; " 
 
 yet we have no right to dethrone that name, conse- 
 crated by the rights of antiquity, and acknowledged by 
 the modern science of a world. 
 
 The authority of Linnaeus and his terms is disputed 
 even by those who subscribe themselves his disciples, 
 and call themselves by his name. This conduct is very 
 ungrateful, or, to say the least of it, inconsistent. In 
 some parts of the Systema Naturce of that extra- 
 ordinary man, recent discovery found something want- 
 ing, and in others imperfection : but these, surely, 
 are not valid reasons to doom the whole fabric to 
 destruction. Now, the various sections of natural 
 history have each their peculiar banners, inscribed, 
 
Jussieu, Lamarck, Latreille, and others. Having found 
 the difficulties of a change of masters, we feel some- 
 what sensitive on this question, and are greatly de- 
 ceived if others have not had equal difficulties. None 
 can pretend to have done what Linnaeus did: 
 
 Secuit congeriem, sectamque redegit in membra; 
 
 and none, therefore, had so legitimate a right to settle 
 its nomenclature as he ; which, with all its faults and 
 imperfections, is far better than any thing we have 
 obtained in return ; in some instances we have re- 
 ceived base coin in lieu of our genuine metal; and far 
 more numerous blots may be found in the escutcheon 
 of these new leaders and arbiters of the destinies of 
 natural history, than are to be discovered in the 
 Systema Naturce. The Helix ianthina and Mya 
 margaritifera, are just as good, in our humble appre- 
 hension, as the Ianthina and Unio genera of the 
 Testacea of Lamarck. This sectarism of science can 
 serve no possible good, but may be productive of 
 infinite mischief. In saying thus much, while it is 
 evident that generic and specific names must have 
 a fixed nomenclature, not subject to caprice or whim, 
 and, when fixed, remain the monument of ages ; we 
 regret that these have been too often the ideal creation 
 of the exhibitor, or even invented to gratify spleen 
 (Smithia sensitiva, and others): a nomenclature is, 
 therefore, necessary and essential ; otherwise the 
 greater number of recorded and observed phenomena 
 would be lost to the republic of science. The Linnaean 
 names were received all over the civilised world, but 
 jarring attributes now mingle their discordant notes, 
 and mar the charm of modern science. 
 
 A great part of our modern elementary works on 
 science, as Botany, Entomology, and Conchology, pre- 
 B 3 
 
sent nothing to the student but a mere catalogue 
 raisonne, collections of names, and occasional de- 
 scriptions of forms ; little else besides, seldom even an 
 allusion to habitats and habits, and the thousand 
 wonders their physiology affords. The labours of 
 Brisseau, and Mirbel, Reaumur, and Bonnet, and many 
 others, British as well as continental, seem to be thus 
 too lightly esteemed, though a brief space occupied 
 in this way might excite attention to what might be 
 otherwise overlooked. Phenomena stated as observed 
 by some might be thus confirmed, and new facts 
 established. We greatly mistake if the student and 
 tyro is not as anxious to find his path strewed with 
 flowers as any other ; indeed, he seems most to require 
 it ; for, in the mere discrimination of one plant, or in- 
 sect, or shell, from its congeners, there is much labour 
 and tedium : it is a duty surely to cheer and enliven 
 that lassitude, and afford some point d'appui for the 
 mind to lean upon in its peregrination. Why not 
 therefore, associate both Nomenclature and Physio- 
 logy ? This would very much relieve the mind when 
 it is weary. Mere discrimination alone will be of 
 very little service, either to social or civil life ; and, to 
 be practically beneficial to these, there must be some- 
 thing more. A mere collector of plants, or insects, 
 or shells, or one who can call them by their names, 
 and assign their proper place in the Systema Natures, 
 is worthy less praise than he who can depict their 
 curious physiology, or trace their relative uses. 
 Fresh excitements would thus be afforded at every 
 step, and new acquisitions to knowledge obtained: 
 for the student, as he climbs the steep acclivity, or 
 rambles through the woods or the dell, or saunters by 
 the brook, if provided with brief abstracts of what has 
 already been discovered in the natural history of this 
 
plant, or that insect, would be careful to register any 
 other phenomenon that might accidentally occur, which 
 he finds unrecorded. He might otherwise pass it un- 
 heeded, under an impression that it must doubtless 
 have been observed before, and not be a reservation 
 for him. Such manuals might be easily formed, and, 
 if we mistake not, are desiderata. We merely suggest, 
 
 do not presume to dictate, though anxious to reap 
 more benefit from the labours of the student than has 
 been hitherto obtained. 
 
 The reason of the popularity of the " Introduction 
 to Entomology," by Messrs. Kirby and Spence, becomes 
 obvious enough; but these tomes are too ponderous 
 and expensive for the general student, though they are 
 volumes replete with curious facts, and record valu- 
 able phenomena, while the asperities of nomenclature 
 and dogmatism of system are softened down and 
 rendered palatable. Increased evidence is presented 
 in the " Natural History of Insects " of the " Family 
 Library," and others all which have, as it were, taken 
 the public by surprise, and the necromance of novelty, 
 
 just as if the key of knowledge had been taken 
 away, and for the first time restored. 
 
 Tempora mutantur, et nos mutamur in illis ! 
 
 B 4 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE CHAMELEON. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. VA- 
 RIOUS OPINIONS. PHENOMENA OF CHANGE, BY 
 
 VARIOUS OBSERVERS. DIFFERENT DEDUCTIONS. 
 
 THE TEMPERATURE OF THE CHANGING SHADES 
 
 AND SPOTS ADDUCED AS A PROOF OF THEIR DE- 
 PENDENCE ON CIRCULATION. ANALOGICAL PHE- 
 NOMENA. 
 
 THE chameleon is a curious and interesting ani- 
 mal, and exhibits features of a very unusual kind. 
 The earlier naturalists could not well overlook a 
 character so extraordinary ; and it found a place in 
 their pages. Fable has drawn on its changes, and 
 poetry has consecrated these wonders by the witchery 
 of song; neither is there a more singular train of 
 phenomena, nor a problem of more difficult solution. 
 Its physiology is of no ordinary kind ; and the singu- 
 lar mutability to which the creature is subject involves 
 a question of an uncommon complexion. 
 
 The Chamceko vulgaris, or common chameleon, is 
 a native of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Its wonderful 
 changes have excited attention in every age, and 
 become proverbial. This remarkable phenomenon is 
 not exclusively peculiar to the chameleon ; for it 
 would appear that both the agama and polychlorus 
 occasionally display various colours, even the deep 
 black which the chameleon sometimes assumes occurs 
 also in them. To account for these changeable hues, 
 seems to have exhausted the imagination and inge- 
 nuity of the observers. Thus, Linnaeus and Hassel- 
 
quist thought they arose from jaundice; Kircher, from 
 the imagination of the animal ; Solinus, from reflec- 
 tion ; Wormius, from the affections of the mind, an 
 opinion nearly that of Lacepede; Shaw and the French 
 academicians, from exposure to the sun. Pliny and 
 Russel concur that the animal takes the colour of the 
 body with which it may happen to be in contact. 
 D'Obsonville, Dumeril, Cuvier, Barrow, and the authors 
 in Rees's Cyclopaedia and the Edinburgh Encyclo- 
 paedia, seem to think that the change is somehow con- 
 nected with the functions of respiration. Mr. Spittal 
 believes that the colour depends upon the quantity or 
 tint of the blood sent to the skin at different times ; 
 and thinks that, from the translucency of the skin, it is 
 probable that the particular states of its surface must 
 also have a share in the production of colour, by 
 affecting the rays of light differently at different 
 times. It is to be regretted that the effects of elec- 
 trical stimuli, and the insulated colours of the prism 
 have not been tried. 
 
 The following paragraph, on the habits of the cha- 
 meleon, is extracted from the " Calcutta Journal :" 
 " I have kept," says the writer, " chameleons in a cage 
 several months, narrowly watching them, and have 
 placed them on different substances for the sake of 
 experiment. I never saw an alteration in their co- 
 lour, but merely a variation in their shade, from a 
 light yellowish green to a very dark olive green ; the 
 mottles were always visible, though changed similarly 
 with the shades. The chameleon's tongue, which is 
 nearly three parts the length of his body, is blunt at 
 the end, and not unlike a common probe. From the 
 end of it exudes a small quantity of matter, thick, 
 clear, and glutinous. This he uses in obtaining his 
 prey, which consists entirely of insects. He will re- 
 B 5 
 
10 
 
 main sometimes for an hour with his tongue on the 
 ground, and when a sufficient quantity of insects has 
 settled upon it, they are all drawn in and devoured. 
 I have seen this animal dart at a fly settled upon a 
 small piece of paper : the fly escaped, but the paper 
 was drawn to the mouth by the cohesive liquid just 
 referred to, and which I have several times particularly 
 examined. The chameleon possesses the quality, 
 generally attributed to him of a power of long 
 fasting." We are indebted to P. Neill, Esquire, for 
 the following memoranda on the chameleon, made by 
 his gardener, A. Scott : " When the chameleon was 
 in good health, and moving from plant to plant, or 
 catching its prey, it was nearly of a uniform colour, 
 with slight variations of shades of green : when with- 
 in a few inches of the glass, in warm sunshine, it 
 generally assumed its most remarkable colour, though 
 sometimes mottled with dark green or brown spots, 
 when not particularly situated : when near the glass 
 at the top of the house, the colour appeared to be 
 the same, whether viewed from beneath within, or 
 from above through the glass, without, and seen in a 
 direction parallel to the solar rays; whatever was 
 the angle, in fact, or position, there was no differ- 
 ence : when one window-sash was lowered over the 
 other, the animal sometimes crept between them ; on 
 different occasions, the glass had to be broken, in 
 order to remove it safely ; and on such occasions it 
 was easy to survey the animal in the positions men- 
 tioned. Though attentively observed, whether the ad- 
 joining and surrounding objects contributed to the 
 changes, nothing could be distinctly ascertained be- 
 yond what might reasonably be supposed accidental ; 
 though change of place, while the chameleon was as- 
 suming any particular shade, soon produced a change of 
 
11 
 
 colour. In general, when any particular change was 
 effected, two longitudinal rows of light spots first made 
 their appearance ; and although these particular parts 
 of the body assumed a variety of shades, perfectly dis- 
 tinct from each other, yet it seldom happened that we 
 could not distinguish the two rows as presenting a 
 shade different from the rest. 
 
 " The chameleon sometimes assumed a colour re- 
 sembling lead or zinc, but rather of a darker blue ; 
 when of this tint, there were no spots visible on any 
 part of the body, and this was the only shade observed 
 to be void of spots : when the general colour was like 
 coal or coal-dust, the animal had brass- coloured spots 
 of various sizes, sometimes arranged in rows, and 
 sometimes scattered; the tail was then alternately 
 marked by rings of the two colours. Though sometimes 
 considerably irritated when food was given, no change 
 of colour ensued. The chameleon seemed to be most 
 offended at one of the tortoises that came in contact 
 with it on the footpath, and, when first observed, the 
 tortoise was creeping unceremoniously over it ; yet 
 though, in this case, the creature was comparatively in 
 the dark, the colours were in most conspicuous array. 
 In candle-light it was of a dirty white, resembling 
 mortar. The chameleon was once placed on a scarlet 
 silk handkerchief, in sunshine, out of doors, and re- 
 mained on it for 15 or 20 minutes without any change 
 having taken place. It was afterwards carried into the 
 shade, and put on the ground, from whence it moved 
 away very slowly, and soon became of a very light 
 green, with numerous dark green spots, which disap- 
 peared when it came into sunshine." 
 
 Mr.Neill observes, that it was fed chiefly with sclaters 
 ( Oniscus ascellus) or centipedes (Scolopendra forficata), 
 and the small translucent lumbrici, or earth-worms 
 B 6 
 
12 
 
 found among tan. In winter, its food was put into 
 the animal's mouth; and in summer, spiders, flies, &c. 
 were captured by itself: the tongue was sometimes 
 darted forward so strongly at its victim, that it has 
 been heard to strike the glass sharply. " On one occa- 
 sion," says Mr. Neill, " the colour of the neighbouring 
 leaf seemed to have influenced the colour of the animal. 
 In the morning, the chameleon was of a dirty cream 
 colour, the most frequent colour during night, and 
 when asleep :" in this instance, " it was observed to be 
 of a bright glaucous green on one side of its body, 
 and of a dull leek green on the other. The bluish 
 side was directly exposed to the light of the sun pass- 
 ing through a newly unfolded banana leaf of a delicate 
 texture," and when removed on the finger to the shade, 
 these shades of green continued evident for some time. 
 The animal came from Malaga, and was one of several 
 received by Professor Jameson. It lived nearly a year 
 in Mr. Neill's hothouse at Canonmills. 
 
 In Professor Jameson's Philosophical Journal, for 
 April, 1829, Mr. Spittal has supplied us with several 
 interesting facts concerning the natural history of the 
 chameleon from personal observation on some living 
 specimens received by him from the south of Spain. 
 They measured five inches in length, exclusive of the 
 tail; the colours observed were compared with corre- 
 sponding tints in Mr. Syme's " Werner's Nomenclature 
 of Colours ; " and it is much to be desired that some 
 fixed standard of this kind were had recourse to in 
 determining the various shades of colour in natural 
 history. " The usual colour observed during the day 
 was a mixture of various shades of green in irregular 
 spots towards the head. These, however, sometimes 
 assumed the form of stripes ; sometimes these colours 
 were slightly mixed with yellowish patches, and at 
 
13 
 
 other times with dark purple spots." It was occa- 
 sionally difficult, he observes, to discover the animals 
 among the leaves; in all probability a beneficent pro- 
 vision, enabling the animal more successfully to obtain 
 its insect food, being thus more easily surprised : at 
 night, the colour appeared to be yellow : on a candle 
 being brought within a few inches of the side of one of 
 these chameleons, the light-brown spots began to ap- 
 pear at irregular distances on the side next the light ; 
 these spots deepened in colour till they became of a- 
 dark brown : when the light was removed to a distance, 
 the spots as gradually disappeared, and the animal 
 assumed its usual yellowish hue : the same effect was 
 produced b}^ an irrigation, in imitation of a gentle 
 shower : the animal remained asleep in both cases. On 
 one occasion, the chameleon escaped from the green- 
 house, and was found among some long grass, and in- 
 vested with rather an extraordinary livery, being speckled 
 black and white ; the colours were in large irregular 
 patches: when in this state, its dimensions were con- 
 tracted, as was the case when of a dark colour; a fact 
 observed by Mr. Forbes, especially when the animal 
 became black. On one of these being irritated, the 
 colour changed from the usual greenish mixture to 
 that of a yellowish gray, spotted over with numerous 
 red points, about the size of a pin's head ; the animal 
 became inflated, and it attempted to bite the finger. 
 When the animals became weak, and some short time 
 before they died, their colours were very different from 
 what was observed during health. They became 
 yellow and purple, displayed in large irregular patches, 
 and seemed gradually to brighten as the animals became 
 weaker, and on death they were brightest. This finds 
 a striking analogy in the dolphin ; as, on the approach 
 of death, the colours become more bright. When the 
 
animals were in health, a change generally took place 
 in the shade every ten minutes; but at night little 
 alteration was perceptible, and the hue was more 
 permanent. Mr. Spittal observes, that he feels as- 
 sured, he " observed the shadow of the wires of the 
 cage, during the bright sunshine, through the body 
 of one of them while in a compressed state, and we 
 are told that the chameleon, in a wild state, often 
 appears as if it were translucent or semi-transparent. 
 
 Mr. Madden informs us, that the chameleon is so 
 exceedingly irascible, that he easily trained two large 
 ones to fight, which they would do on causing them to 
 strike their tails the one against the other. During 
 their excitement, the change of colour becomes very 
 conspicuous, though, by Mr. A. Scott's communication 
 to us, the animal may be irritated without this mu- 
 tation of colour supervening. Mr. Madden supposes 
 that the bile of the chameleon, being visible in the 
 blood under the pellucid skin, affords, as it passes 
 through the circulation, three distinct shades of green. 
 This seems, however, to be the introduction of an 
 occult cause, nor is it necessary to suppose any other 
 than an accelerated circulation to account for the 
 phenomenon. A languid or hurried circulation will 
 necessarily be connected with a greater or lesser 
 degree of oxygenation, a fact proved by the variable 
 temperature exhibited in the colours of the skin : 
 venous blood is dark, and arterial a bright red colour ; 
 and these colours depend on chemical change ; they 
 are of different temperatures, and intermediate shades 
 may be formed by their mixture. 
 
 Monconis relates, that the chameleon appears green 
 in 'the sunbeam, and black when seen by candle-light. 
 Perhaps Merrick, on this assumption, has ventured to 
 record the circumstance. That it can change to a deep 
 
15 
 
 black, has been clearly proved. He also mentions that, 
 being shut up in a box, and put on white paper, it be- 
 comes yellow and green, and affirms that it can assume 
 only these four colours. Mademoiselle Scuderi, in 
 her observations and experiments, states, that, being 
 exposed to the sun, the chameleon often changes its 
 colour, without taking that of the superficies on which 
 it moves. 
 
 Professor Blumenbach has not, that we are aware, 
 given us any where his opinion on the change of colour 
 in the chameleon; but one of his friends, to whom that 
 opinion was verbally communicated, informed us, that 
 he considered the varied colours to depend on the 
 angles of position in relation to the eye. That the 
 change of colour, however, is real, and not a deceptio 
 visuS)iioone can for a moment doubt who has accurately 
 observed the phenomenon : the change of colour often 
 takes place instanter, without change of position either 
 in the animal or the eye of the observer, and the dif- 
 ference of temperature proves this reality. It is also 
 well ascertained, that the animal does not assume the 
 colour of the surface it traverses. It seems, therefore, 
 altogether demonstrable, that the change of colour in 
 the chameleon is ascribable to the circulation, as 
 affected by its instinct passion, excited or roused to 
 action ; and that light, acting on this circulation through 
 the cuticular membrane, may, in virtue of its electric or 
 calorific power, deepen the shade of the bands and 
 spots: the entire shade will often be observed to fade 
 away, or increase in depth and intensity ; oftentimes 
 the changes are only partial, and exhibited on some 
 particular parts of the body; when handled, it appears 
 to be dark green. If wrapped in linen, it seems 
 whitish when withdrawn, though this does not always 
 happen. When the one we saw at Exeter 'Change, how- 
 
16 
 
 ever, was withdrawn from its envelope of cotton-wool, 
 it was very pale; but the animal seemed weak. 
 
 Some winters ago, we saw a living chameleon, for the 
 first time, in Exeter 'Change menagerie. It was sickly, 
 and no experiments could be made upon it. In the 
 month of July, 1824, we had, however, this oppor- 
 tunity, on a fine healthy chameleon, brought to Hull 
 by the captain of a ship, from Sierra Leone, on the 
 coast of Africa. It is not our intention to enter upon 
 a particular description of its exterior appearance, it 
 being sufficiently well known from the numerous spe- 
 cimens in the various cabinets of Europe, as well as 
 those in private collections. The eyes are singularly 
 constructed, and merit a passing notice ; each one 
 being a rich and brilliant gem, set in a ring of gold, 
 and enchased in a spherical socket ; being adorned on 
 the superficies with radii uniting in this beautiful point 
 of vision. Each ball performs its revolution entirely 
 independent of its counterpart, and even when one 
 eye shuts, the other remains the watchful sentinel : 
 the globe, under such conditions, seems absorbed, and 
 its convexity discovers a depression. The eye appears 
 remarkably intelligent and acute, and it seemed to 
 contemplate the ball of the thermometer, during the 
 progress of the experiments, with a curious interest, 
 We have merely singled out the organ of vision, as not 
 the least interesting feature of this elaborate structure, 
 in which such exquisite design is every where mani- 
 fest. The pace of the chameleon is slow and mea- 
 sured ; the vertebral column is dentated, and the skin 
 is rugose or wrinkled : its food is derived from the 
 insect world, and coleopterous and other insects are 
 discovered in its egesta. When a fly settles near,. it 
 moves with extreme caution to a convenient distance 
 and position, and, darting its tongue, imbued with viscid 
 
17 
 
 saliva, to the spot, it is entangled and ingulfed in a 
 moment ; sometimes the tongue will be extended to 
 the lengtlj of five inches out of its mouth ; so that 
 its living on air is a mere fable. One we saw, had 
 lived many weeks without food ; so that its occasional 
 abstinence may be very great. Mr. J. M. Davies, of 
 Gosport, possessed a live chameleon, the favourite pet 
 of his family, apparently delighting in crawling over 
 them, and receiving food from their hand. The last 
 time we saw the living chameleon was in Mr. Neill's 
 conservatory, reposing at perfect ease on the stem of a 
 Passiflora quadrangularis with its prehensile tail coiled 
 round the plant. 
 
 Our experiments were made on the TEMPERATURE 
 of the animal, as connected with the changes of colour 
 depicted in such varying shades on the surface of the 
 skin ; and the magic of the necromancer's rod takes not 
 the sense of vision more completely captive than do 
 these ephemeral and sportive hues. In numerous ex- 
 periments, we have clearly and satisfactorily ascertained 
 that each tint of the chromatic series of the prism 
 invariably discovers a temperature peculiar to such 
 specific colour, and in a constant ratio of progression ; 
 and, in the subsequent experiments, we employed a 
 very delicate and sensible thermometer, instantane- 
 ously affected by contact. 
 
 20th July, 1824, at 55 minutes past 4, to 10 minutes 
 past 5, P. M. ; temperature of air, 72 .5 Fahrenheit ; 
 ball in contact with either side, 73 to 73 .5 F. ; ditto 
 ditto, 73 .5 to 74 F. As the tint varied from a 
 yellowish green to a deep pea-green, the side farthest 
 removed from the source of light, in all our observa- 
 tions, constantly discovered the lightest colour; and 
 when that side was purposely turned toward the 
 window, it assumed, in a short time, the darker shade, 
 
18 
 
 while the other softened down proportionally into the 
 lighter tint ; and when the light was equalised, the two 
 sides were of similar complexion. Air, 72 ; temper- 
 ature of skin, 73 on lighter side, and 73 .25 on the 
 dark green side ; yellow field of colour, 73 .5 F. In 
 another experiment, the yellow was 74 .5 F. While 
 moving on the floor it became very opaque, the 
 darker spotted bands exhibited a temperature of 
 75 .25 ; and it is worthy of remark, that where the 
 ball of the thermometer rested, though the pressure 
 was gentle in the extreme, the spot became white. 
 21st July, at 30 minutes past 10, A. M. ; air, 69 .5 F. ; 
 neck of the chameleon, 70 .5 ; dark-coloured band, 
 71. 5; lighter parts, 71. In sunshine, the bands, 
 zebra-like, became remarkably distinct, and the darker 
 shades indicated 74, while the intermediate green 
 grounds oscillated between 72 .75 and 73 .5 F. 
 We do not believe that the coloured ground, traversed 
 in any way, affects the evolved tint, excepting so far 
 as the light reflected and modified from various coloured 
 surfaces, may operate differently on the circulation of 
 the blood ; since we presume that the change of colour 
 is in accord with the circulation of the blood as affected 
 by the action of light on the vital fluid through its 
 membranous envelope. As the circulation is languid, 
 or more active, in its flux through the system, a cor- 
 responding colour will be developed, to announce this 
 new phenomenon of chemical change, superinduced 
 by the stimulus of light on the blood, and this tint will 
 be a faithful index of its amount. The colour, too, 
 we have concluded, is the medium by which the 
 temperature of the system is equalised. Hence, too, 
 the negro tint may subserve an equally important end 
 in the system. 
 
 Dr. Wilson Philip has proved that nervous influ- 
 
19 
 
 ence is analogous to electric energy, or is at least 
 obedient to the latter, and made to flow at its com- 
 mand ; Mr. Thackrah shows that the vitality of the 
 blood is maintained by nervous influence ; and Dr. 
 Cams of Dresden discovered the circulation of blood 
 in insects, and that the decrease and increase, with its 
 intermission in the light, of the Lampyris italica, cor- 
 responded with the pulsation of the blood. Just so is 
 it with the chameleon : the temperature of the blood 
 is proved variable, and the colour cast up on the skin 
 is its index. It may not be irrelevant to the question 
 to state, that the blood is presumed to be warm in pro- 
 portion as it is nearest the heart, and that arterial 
 blood exceeds, by about one degree, that of the 
 veins. By Mr. Hunter's experiments^ it appears a 
 moderate degree of inflammatory action is capable of 
 elevating the temperature of the blood 4? F. ; and it is 
 evident that irritation or excitement produces an 
 action somewhat analogous. Violent passions of the 
 mind cast up their crimson or roseate hue on the skin, 
 and we feel the fevered warmth playing on the face. 
 The range of temperature we observed on the skin of 
 the chameleon rose from 70 .5 to 74, nearly the 
 difference observed by Mr. Hunter between the ordi- 
 nary state of the blood and that of common inflam- 
 matory action. Specific colours have invariably pecu- 
 liar and specific temperatures, and the advance from 
 the violet to the red ray of the prism is accompanied 
 with a corresponding elevation of temperature. The 
 variable changes in the chameleon are often instanta- 
 neous, though sometimes more slowly produced. 
 
 In pursuing these remarks and investigations, we 
 were surprised and gratified to find that somewhat 
 similar views and conclusions had been sustained by 
 Panarolus, a Roman writer, quoted by Ogilby in his 
 
20 
 
 " Africa." The following extracts are from the folio 
 edition, published in 1670. Ogilby's work on Africa 
 is a compilation from at least forty different authors, 
 though he chiefly relies on Bellonius in his account of 
 Egypt. 
 
 " Chameleon is a Greek word, and signifies < a little 
 lion.' Bellonius says, they frequent about Cairo, and 
 many other places, in the hedges and bushes : it bears 
 some little resemblance to the crocodile ; from which 
 it is different in colour, head, tongue, eyes, and feet : 
 it creeps not, but walks upon all-four ; the head long 
 and sharp, like a hog's ; the neck very short ; and eyes, 
 which, having no eyelid, can turn about on every 
 side. 
 
 " This is a 'sluggish and dull animal, holding the 
 head carelessly, and the mouth always gaping, lolling 
 out the tongue, and so catching flies, grasshoppers, 
 caterpillars, palmer-worms, and such like ; instead of 
 teeth, having one entire jaw-bone, indented like a saw, 
 but useless, swallowing whole whatever food it takes ; 
 wanting both spleen and bladder ; muting like a hawk. 
 The back hath a hard and rough skin, beset with some 
 few prickles ; the two fore-feet, Bellonius saith, have 
 three claws inwards, and two outwards ; but the hinder 
 feet three outwards, and two inwards, with hooked 
 nails, or talons. It hath a strange and ridiculous 
 manner of gait, or movement ; for, stretching both feet 
 on each side at once together, and so alternately, the 
 other makes a shuffling gradation, one shoulder jetting 
 foremost, the other outstepping that, with a continual 
 untoward hank and loose, that it makes spectators 
 laugh, as if it were a match which side should come 
 first to the goal. But he is so nimble in running up 
 trees, that he seems rather to fly ; wherein he makes 
 great use of his tail to lay hold on boughs, especially 
 
'21 
 
 in coming down ; whence we may gather, that the 
 chameleon more frequents trees than ground. Nor give 
 the motions of the eyes less cause of comical admira- 
 tion ; for he does not as other creatures, who turn both 
 eyes at once after the same object, but, something like 
 our squinters, not only looks two opposite ways at 
 once, but more, seeing right forward with one eye, and 
 looking up with the other aloft ; another while to the 
 ground with one, and sideling with the other : but, 
 which is yet stranger, it will draw one eye to its back, 
 and make a survey behind, while the other takes a 
 prospect forwards. They make at their meals also 
 merriment, neither picking as fowl, nor chewing like 
 cattle, nor sucking like lampreys and leeches ; but with 
 an odd and sudden flutter of the tongue, shot out near 
 a hand's breadth, ingurges the caught prey in a trice. 
 This member being nothing else but a hollow pipe, 
 fleshy and spongy, wherein are some sinews easier to 
 shut together than a gin or trap, because those nerves 
 proceeding from the os hyoides, and running through 
 the cavity, draw the same, after expansion, back again, 
 with its prey sticking to a glutinous stuff, wherewith it 
 is covered. This refutes the opinions of the ancients, 
 who believed the chameleon lived by air ; whereas, in 
 truth, it lives by such received nourishment as we have 
 declared. 
 
 " It appropriates to itself another peculiar quality, 
 in the opinion of some old writers, who deliver that 
 the chameleon changes colour according to the several 
 objects presented ; first in the eyes, then in the tail, 
 after that in the whole body. And this alteration of 
 colours many authors conjecture, and, among others, 
 the Roman Panarolus affirms, to proceed from the 
 systole and diastole of the heart, which, according to 
 sensibility of heat or cold, beats quicker or slower ; 
 
the quicker striking a redness, whereas the slow reduces 
 him to his own natural ash-colour ; for it retains that 
 hue even after death, though a little paler." 
 
 The following is an amusing conceit, as Dr. Grew 
 would call it: " If the chameleon at any time see a 
 serpent taking the ayre, and sunning himself under some 
 greene tree, he climbeth up into that tree and setleth 
 himselfe directly over the serpent, then out of his 
 mouth he casteth a thred like a spyder, at the end 
 whereof hangeth a drop of poyson as bright as any 
 pearle; by this string he letteth downe the poyson 
 upon the serpent, which lighting upon it killeth it 
 immediately. And Scaliger reporteth a greater won- 
 der than this in the description of the chameleon ; for 
 he sayth, if the boughes of the tree so grow as the per- 
 pendicular line cannot fall directlie upon the serpent, 
 then hee so correcteth and guideth it with his fore-feet, 
 that it falleth upon the serpent within the mark of a 
 hayres breadth." * 
 
 The new view of the phenomena of the chameleon 
 presented in the preceding pages might receive 
 elucidation from many analogical arguments. When 
 the mind is surprised by the tribute due to loveli- 
 ness, and the circulation becomes thus affected, the 
 conscious rose instantly blossoms on the cheek of 
 beauty. The hectic flush on the cheek the ver- 
 milion lip the pale ensign of the lily where the 
 rose was once enshrined all concur to show that 
 the colours thus displayed on the exterior surface are 
 a faithful index of the varied movements of the cir- 
 culating mass. The passions of the mind affect the 
 circulation of the blood, and paint the visage. Lord 
 
 * Topsell, p. 117. 
 
23 
 
 Byron has finely described the glow of youth and 
 beauty, as affected by the passions of the soul: 
 
 " Her cheek all purple with the beam of youth, 
 Mounting at times to a transparent glow, 
 As if her veins ran lightning." 
 
 Tasso as well describes the contest of the rose and 
 lily on the features of the beautiful Armida : 
 
 Dolce color de rose in quel bel volto, 
 Fra 1'ivorio si sparge, e si confonde 
 Ma nella bocca, ond esce aura amorosa 
 Sola rosseggia, e semplice la rosa. 
 
 Thus, too, in inferior creation, the buffalo and other 
 quadrupeds are violently excited by any thing red. 
 When the male turkey is irritated, and struts about in 
 all the mimic pomp and pantomime of offended pride, 
 the caruncle of the forehead relaxes, and this, with the 
 naked parts of the head and neck, mount up from blue 
 to an intense red. 
 
 Mr. Forbes, in his " Oriental Memoirs," adverts to 
 the marked antipathy which the chameleon expresses 
 to a black surface. When forcibly brought before a 
 black board suspended in the room, it would tremble 
 violently, and assume a black colour. This it care- 
 fully avoided, and when a black hat was presented to 
 it, it shrunk to a skeleton, and became as black as jet, 
 and an excitement in the animal analogous to terror in 
 the human species might be deemed capable of pro- 
 ducing such a change. The most singular effect of 
 terror in the human species, as far as our knowledge 
 goes, is that recorded in the " Journal de Medecine 
 pour Tan 1817." It occurred at Paris, in the Hospital 
 of the " Salpetriei e." A female, of advanced age, was 
 
so affected with horror, on hearing that her daughter, 
 with two children in her arms, had precipitated herself 
 out of a window, and were killed on the spot, that her 
 skin, in a single night, from head to foot, became as black 
 as that of a negro; the change continued permanent. 
 In that remarkable phenomenon, proceeding from a 
 cardiac disorganisation, wherein black and red blood 
 intermingle, the skin, in consequence of a partial and 
 incomplete circulation, is blue, which proves that the 
 blood can develop and sustain a specific dye on the 
 cutis. 
 
 We cannot conceive a finer illustration of our view 
 of the case than the brilliant mockery of vision dis- 
 played in the dying dolphin, as life ebbs through the 
 orifice of the bleeding wound, thus clearly shown to be 
 dependent on the flux and reflux of the blood. Fal- 
 coner has described the phenomenon in all the philo- 
 sophy of poetry. We have been informed by an eye- 
 witness, that the tints displayed in the dying dolphin 
 increase remarkably in brilliancy and beauty, progress- 
 ive to the terminal line of life.* 
 
 The colour of the iris in the eye may resolve itself 
 into a different question, but it is certainly connected 
 with some characteristic feature of this strange micro- 
 cosm. The fine blue eye, for instance, of the sprightly 
 
 * The following curious anecdote was communicated to us by 
 a gentleman now in His Majesty's dock-yard at Devonport, as 
 a fact of which he was an eye-witness. A dolphin, presumed to 
 be a female, was caught on the line, while the ship was passing 
 rapidly through the water : in a little time another dolphin 
 was perceived to seize it by the tail, and, after fruitless efforts, 
 and much tugging, finding it in vain, the fish swam round tp 
 the line, snapped it in sunder, and thus liberated the captive. 
 In all probability, this heroic deed was accomplished by the 
 male. 
 
25- 
 
 gazelle, introduced with such simple and beautiful 
 pathos by Moore in his Lalla Rookh: 
 
 " I never loved a dear gazelle, 
 To glad me with its dark blue eye, 
 But when it came to know me well, 
 And love me, it was sure to die." 
 
 We have an analogous phenomenon in the case of 
 a peculiar variety of the Bos taurus from Africa, de- 
 scribed in the Magazine of Natural History. * The 
 general aspect of the animal is mild and docile, except 
 when irritated, and this finds its expression in the eye. 
 The iris is naturally of a pale blue colour, but when 
 the creature is excited it varies from a very pale blue 
 or lilac to a deep crimson. 
 
 The views now submitted appear to us to be sus- 
 tained by such forcible testimony that the evidence 
 seems almost irresistible. 
 
 How diversified the interest and beauty which every 
 where pervade the loveliness and grandeur of the 
 creation of GOD! And what sublime pleasures are 
 often sacrificed by the non-observance of the wonders 
 of creative Omnipotence ! 
 
 * Vol. i. p. us. 
 
26 
 
 CHAP. III. 
 
 ASCENT OF THE SPIDER. IMPORTANCE OF THE 
 
 MINUTIAE OF CREATION. CURIOUS HABITS OF 
 
 PECULIAR SPIDERS. ASCENT OF THE SPIDER 
 
 OBSERVED. GENERAL REMARKS CONNECTED WITH 
 
 IT. THE ASCENT CONSIDERED AN ELECTRIC PHE- 
 NOMENON. 
 
 IF the views of the entomologist reach no higher? than 
 the collection of a cabinet of lepidopterae, or the tech- 
 nicalities of mere nomenclature, we may consent to 
 praise his diligence and laborious research, but must 
 withhold our meed of approbation to the soundness of 
 his views as a naturalist. Entomology, confined within 
 limits such as these, is a dull, worthless, and contempt- 
 ible study. 
 
 This branch of natural history, however, has a wider 
 range and nobler field of usefulness ; and though some 
 pseudo-philosophers have sneered at the diminu- 
 tive creatures thus contemplated, they show but the 
 feebleness of their own understanding. Insulated, they 
 may occasionally appear of little note, but with a com- 
 mission from above, become " as the armies of the 
 living God." The contemptible moschito may drive 
 man to madness, and the zimb of Chaldea make even 
 the rhinoceros tremble and flee before it. An army 
 of locusts, denser than the storm-cloud, and compass- 
 ing an extent of many miles, may lay waste, in a few 
 short hours, the blossom and promise of the year, and 
 mercilessly consign the myriad population of a vast 
 
27 
 
 empire to pestilence and famine, and all the " bit- 
 terness of death;" in its ravages, mock the devas- 
 tations of Turks, Saracens, and Tartars, and claim 
 mightier trophies and triumphs than an Attala, an 
 Alexander, or a Genseric. 
 
 The colour that vies with the brightest ray of the 
 rainbow, we owe to a species of coccus. Silk, once 
 balanced for its weight in gold, we receive from a 
 moth. What is sweeter than honey ? an insect pre- 
 pares it. These are only a specimen of the benefits 
 we receive from the insect tribe ; but they exalt them 
 in the scale of usefulness. 
 
 By studying the natural history and economy of 
 insects, we shall obtain more enlarged views of the 
 beneficence and omnipotence of Heaven ; and in their 
 protection and preservation, we shall perceive interest- 
 ing examples of that Providence which watches over 
 the minute as well as the vast and gigantic in the 
 universe: nor is it less delightful to contemplate the 
 humble lolium arenaria guarding the confines of the 
 sea, by interlacing and intertwisting the sod that 
 enamels its shore, as if commissioned by Providence 
 to say to its world of waters, " Hitherto, and no farther, 
 and here shall thy proud waves be stayed," than to 
 contemplate the " moon walking in brightness" amid a 
 thousand twinkling worlds of light. If size, indeed, 
 were the touchstone of excellence and the standard 
 of appeal, then, as has been well observed, would " the 
 horse be more excellent than his rider." 
 
 To the natural historian none of the works of Infinite 
 Wisdom can be an object of indifference. Size is a 
 merely comparative term, and is secondary in consi- 
 deration. Loftier views than the measure of a portion 
 of supplied space engage attention, and the whole 
 mental powers ought to be subordinated to the admir- 
 c 2 
 
28 
 
 ation of HIS works, who is " maximus in maximis, 
 maxirnus in minimis." 
 
 It seems to us probable, that the phenomena of the 
 ascent of the spider will be found ultimately connected 
 with the meteorology of the atmosphere ; and the ob- 
 servation of its curious habits lead hereafter to some 
 useful practical results. 
 
 Among all the phenomena presented to the study 
 of the entomologist, there are few to be found more 
 interesting than those that are met with among spiders. 
 Haafner, in his Pedestrian Journey through Ceylon, 
 thus describes the horned spider : "Its brown rough 
 body was more than six inches round, and its claws, the 
 thickness of a quill, held a lizard, the flesh of which it 
 was greedily devouring. I could plainly see its fiery 
 eyes rolling in its head." The Barbary spider carries 
 its young in a pouch or bag, like the opossum or 
 kangaroo ; and the young spiders, after being nursed 
 and nestled there, sometimes destroy their parent, 
 while the female frequently kills her mate. * The 
 family of the arama, or spider, presents a display 
 of cruelty and cunning seldom exceeded among the 
 most ferocious of insect tribes; yet their history is 
 fraught with the interest of much curious ingenuity, 
 and there are phenomena connected with it which 
 may well claim attention. They are tigers in ento- 
 
 * Though a cruel race, the female is careful of its young. The 
 sac, or bag, which contains the ova, is a tissue, impervious to 
 water, and is their constant companion wherever they go. Some 
 keep incessant watch over their young. We remember to have 
 witnessed this most interestingly exhibited in the case of one 
 whose nest we rent asunder, and disturbed the included young ; 
 the female never stirred from the spot, but, regardless of self- 
 preservation, endeavoured to rally them round her, and restore 
 tranquillity and confidence. 
 
29 
 
 mology; yet their attachment to, and affection for, 
 their young command our admiration: one, for in- 
 stance, chose rather to be buried alive with her 
 ovarium, than relinquish the possession of it to an 
 ant lion. Its silken cocoon of ova is, to the spider, its 
 all ; it is its constant accompaniment, and it will part 
 with life sooner than resign this invaluable pearl. 
 They may be tamed, too, and are not insensible to the 
 kindness that supplies their wants. 
 
 Spiders, it would seem, are not entirely without 
 their value in the arts : Bon, a Frenchman, obtained 
 several pairs of stockings from the webs of a particular 
 kind of spider, and had suggested their cultivation; 
 the idea, however, was finally abandoned, as they 
 made war on each other. In the British Museum, if 
 we remember right, is a small painting, the canvass 
 of which is a spider's web. A species of red spider 
 is said to have been used abroad in dyeing; and 
 in this country there is a minute species, with a 
 brilliant scarlet dress, which we have often met with 
 on the walls of Chester, though neither this nor the 
 murex is likely to supplant the cochineal. The Ba- 
 hama spider is described as two inches long. " He 
 hath two strong black shining teeth, like crooked 
 claws, standing parallel, and with their points down- 
 ward, above half an inch long by the bow. These 
 teeth, being set in gold, are used by some for tooth- 
 picks ! " * 
 
 The mygale avicularia of South America is about 
 two inches long ; and we are assured by Straoss that it 
 certainly sucks the blood of the humming bird, and in 
 all probability entraps it in its web. Among the " Rari- 
 ties of Gresham College," there is stated to have been 
 
 * Grew, quoted from Pen. Nat. Hist, 
 c 3 
 
30 
 
 " the web of a Bermuda spider. It is as strong as to 
 snare a bird as big as a thrush : 'tis here wound upon a 
 a paper, like new silk." We remember to have found, 
 in our rambles through the Pontine marshes, a spider's 
 thread, white as snow, and like ravelled silk, of con- 
 siderable cohesion. In the Magazine of Natural His- 
 tory we have described a beautiful conical structure 
 discovered in South America, and, in all probability, 
 the workmanship of the mygale avicul. The mygale 
 cementaria, a native of Jamaica, burrows in the earth 
 like a rabbit, forming a cylindrical cavity from twelve 
 to fifteen inches in depth : like the upholsterer bee, it 
 lines its walls with silk tapestry ; it also constructs a 
 valve or trap-door of silk, opening from within, and 
 closing the aperture by its own weight. In the fens 
 of Norfolk may be found a large spider, which forms 
 a raft for catching its prey : this raft is constructed 
 of a ball of weeds, and is about three inches in 
 diameter : the insect takes possession of the " eme- 
 rald isle," and thus commits itself to the stream. 
 The aranea aquatica constructs a subaqueous abode 
 by attaching threads to the stems or leaves of aquatic 
 plants, and smearing the interstices of the meshes 
 over with some transparent glutinous matter, similar, 
 we think, to that used by the caddis worm in the 
 construction of its leafy dwelling : the diving bell is at 
 length finished, and the introduction of air, brought 
 from the surface and introduced beneath, expels the 
 water ; and here, in its crystalline subaqueous domi- 
 cile, it devours the prey at leisure it hunts for some- 
 times on land, and where none of its congeners will 
 care to follow and contend for possession. This cu- 
 rious fabric is filled with air precisely in the same 
 manner as the chemist supplies his deflagrating jar or 
 bell-glass over the shelf of the pneumatic cistern ; and 
 
31 
 
 an aerial structure is reared within " the world of 
 waters." It is shaped somewhat like a pigeon's egg, 
 divided, is about this size, and, when illuminated 
 by the sun-beam, shines like a silvered mirror. In 
 a corner of this curious abode repose the ova of 
 the insect, wrapped up in a silken cocoon, and tended 
 by the female with incessant watchfulness. 
 
 The aranea geometrica spins a very beautiful web ; 
 and it is worth while contemplating its operations on 
 a calm summer evening, in the snug corner of some 
 window, hedge, or paling : an old Latin poet has 
 said, 
 
 " Nulla mihi manus est, pedibus tamen 
 Omnia fiunt ;" 
 
 and, in allusion to the spider, the naturalist of the 
 sacred volume has observed, " The spider taketh hold 
 with her hands ; " and in these curious weaving oper- 
 ations, it is interesting to observe how well the tibia 
 and tarsus supply their place. Radii diverge to- 
 ward the periphery of several concentric circles, and 
 these will be found to be more polished and glassy 
 than those threads which intersect them, and are last 
 woven. The spider having collected the threads 
 emerging from the centre, retires to his hiding-place 
 in one of the angles, and holding these threads by its 
 tibia and tarsus, as a coachman does the reins, the 
 vibration communicates information whenever an un- 
 fortunate and unwary insect is entangled. The parti- 
 cular thread of the web is thus easily discriminated ; 
 and though the spider may be effectually concealed, 
 and invisible to the victim, it will pounce instantly to 
 the spot, glancing along the vibrating lines. 
 
 That this curious tribe of insects may present occa- 
 sional phenomena connected with the meteorology of 
 c 4 
 
32 
 
 the atmosphere, our researches on the aranea aero- 
 nautica would seem to prove, and the manner in which 
 some spiders carry on their operations confirms the 
 conclusion. If the weather is likely to become rainy, 
 windy, or the like, the spider fixes the terminating 
 threads by which the entire web is suspended, un- 
 usually short, and in this state awaits the impending 
 change. On the other hand, if these threads are dis- 
 covered to be long, we may conclude that it will be 
 in that ratio serene, and continue so for about a week 
 or more. If spiders be completely inactive, rain will 
 likely follow; but if, during the prevalence of rain, 
 their wonted activity is resumed, it may be considered 
 as of short duration, and to be soon followed by fair 
 and constant weather. It has been also observed, that 
 spiders regularly make some alterations in their webs 
 every twenty-four hours, and we feel persuaded that 
 this is the case : if these changes are observed be- 
 tween 6 and 7 o'clock, p. M., they indicate a clear and 
 pleasant night. It is really interesting to observe, in 
 a fine summer's day, the threads that fan and flutter in 
 the breeze from the trees and hedges ; and they are 
 often stretched across the road from hedge-row to 
 hedge-row, particularly in a morning or evening. 
 
 The ascent of the wingless spider into the atmo- 
 sphere, is a fact unquestionable and unquestioned. 
 Linnaeus, Shaw, Donovan, and others, throw no light 
 on the subject, nor indeed attempt a solution. In the 
 Edinburgh Review, in reference to Kirby and Spence's 
 Entomology, it is remarked : " The flying of certain 
 spiders, by means of their webs, is not the least extra- 
 ordinary mode of motion possessed by spiders ; nor, in 
 truth, is it very intelligible, although the fact itself is 
 unquestionable. In ordinary cases, the spiders spin 
 their threads slowly from organs adapted to that end, 
 
33 
 
 perforated with numerous holes, so that each thread 
 may consist of many thousand filaments. The flying 
 spiders, on the contrary, can dart out the thread in a 
 straight line for many inches, in any direction, and 
 then in some unknown manner they follow it. In 
 these cases, when the animal and his chariot are 
 wafted away together by the winds, there is no diffi- 
 culty. Our authors have thrown no additional light 
 on this difficult subject." 
 
 The gossamer-web was formerly believed to be a 
 tissue of " scorched dew ;" thus Spenser, 
 
 " The fine net which oft we woven see 
 Of scorched dew." 
 
 Even Dr. Hooke said that the gossamer only " much 
 resembled a cobweb," and that " the great white clouds 
 that appear all the summer-time might be of the same 
 substance." 
 
 While Swammerdam and De Geer ridiculed the 
 idea of the flight of spiders, Dr. Hulse seems to have 
 more particularly observed the property which cer- 
 tain spiders possess of propelling their threads into 
 the air. Dr. Martin Lister discovered that spiders 
 were wafted aloft on this airy vehicle ; and, in fine 
 weather, found, more than once, a spider which, from 
 its flight, he called " the bird:" he afterwards noticed 
 that the insect, by elevating the anus, darted a thread 
 from thence, and thus rose into the atmosphere. 
 From the highest point of the Cathedral of York, Dr. 
 Lister beheld the gossamer-webs floating far above 
 him. Mr. White of Selborne confirms this account : 
 a spider darted off from the page he was then perusing, 
 and, though the atmosphere was tranquil, its ascent 
 was rapid; and it has been considered that this pro- 
 perty is not peculiar to one species, but that several 
 c 5 
 
34 
 
 spiders, when young, can so raise themselves in the 
 air. Dr. Lister conceived that spiders, in their transit 
 through the atmosphere, could coil up their threads, 
 and descend ad libitum from their aerial excursions, 
 by altering in this manner their specific gravity. 
 
 We are not aware that any have attempted to 
 describe the gossamer-spider as a distinct and peculiar 
 species, Bechstein and Starck excepted ; but they 
 seem to have got hold of different species : thus, the 
 former describes it as being the size of a small pin's 
 head, having eight eyes disposed in a circle, body of 
 a dark-brown colour, and light-yellow legs ; while that 
 of Starck extended more than two lines in length, 
 having eyes in the form of a square, two on each 
 side, in contact with each other ; thorax of a deep- 
 brown colour, with paler streaks; the under side of 
 the abdomen of a dull white, and a dark copper-brown 
 colour above, with a dentated white spot running 
 longitudinally down the middle. Dr. Starck imprisoned 
 several of these under a bell-glass, on a grass-plat, 
 and he tells us they existed two months without food, 
 though they took water greedily. Mr. White ob- 
 served a remarkable phenomenon on the 21st of 
 September, 174-1. Early in the morning the whole 
 country was enveloped in a coat of cobweb, wet with 
 dew. His dogs, on a shooting excursion, were blinded 
 by them : a delightful day succeeded ; and, at nine 
 o'clock A. M., a shower of these webs fell, (not single 
 threads, but formed of flakes,) some nearly an inch 
 broad, and five or six inches long, and continued to 
 fall during the entire day. Baskets-full might have 
 been collected from the hedges ; and, from the velo- 
 city of their fall, it was evident they were consi- 
 derably heavier than the medium through which they 
 descended. 
 
35 
 
 The small spider with which these remarks are con- 
 nected has its eyes disposed in a circle somewhat 
 elongated ; the body and legs, examined with a lens, 
 are hairy, palpi bifid, and protuberant at the end; 
 tarsus, forked or clawed ; legs, &c. somewhat translu- 
 cent ; abdomen and thorax glossy, and of a dark ferru- 
 ginous colour ; anal processes, three ; the femur and 
 tibia have each two articulations. Mr. Kirby writes 
 us, that he thinks the aranea obstetrix of Starck is that 
 referred to : but the one described by Starck under 
 this name is striped, and the eyes are arranged in the 
 form of a square, which are certainly sufficient dis- 
 tinctions. This approximates more nearly to Bech- 
 stein's aranea obstetrix. We shall take leave, therefore, 
 to call it ARANEA AERONAUTiCA, because, under the 
 name aranea obstetrix the German naturalists describe 
 two entirely different insects. The chief reason, how- 
 ever, for our proposing the assigned name is the fact 
 that its ascent and movement in the air are essential to 
 its existence ; and the numbers that occur in the atmo- 
 sphere are such as sufficiently to account for the gossa- 
 mer, and its beautiful and interesting phenomena. It 
 cannot, therefore, be doubted, that those threads which 
 glisten in the sunbeam, and float in the air from the 
 hedges and hedge-rows, and the reticular tissue on 
 grass, which, when sparkling with dew, refracts so 
 beautifully the tints of the rainbow, are the work of 
 the aeronautic spider. 
 
 Connected with this question, we may mention a 
 phenomenon similar to that mentioned by Mr. White, 
 and witnessed on the 16th of September, 1822, at 
 Bewdley, in Worcestershire. Between the hours of 
 11 A.M. and 2 P. M. the whole atmosphere seemed to 
 be a tissue of cobwebs, which continued to fall in great 
 numbers, and in quick succession; the temperature 
 c 6 
 
36 
 
 was 72 F. Some of these were single, others branched 
 filaments, occasionally from 40 to 50 feet in length ! 
 others were woolly films, or flocculi : some fell slowly, 
 and others more rapidly. This was first noticed in the 
 market-place at Bewdley ; and, on repairing to the 
 adjoining fields, we found the same phenomenon, and 
 our clothes were most curiously invested with a net- 
 work of spiders' threads. In a communication to the 
 Rev. J. J. Freeman of Kidderminster, now a Mis- 
 sionary in Madagascar, we remarked this circumstance ; 
 and the fpllowing is an extract from his letter to us, 
 dated 18th of September, 1822: The fall of cob- 
 webs was also observed here on Monday. A gentle- 
 man told me he was obliged to wipe his face several 
 times while walking in his garden about 12 or 1 o'clock, 
 such quantities continued to fall on him." On the 
 19th of July, 1822, the yeomanry, at 1 o'clock p. M., 
 were drawn up in the market-place at Kidderminster, 
 to fire a feu-de-joie, which had the effect of bringing 
 immense numbers of this spider from the aerial re- 
 gions : we picked up a considerable quantity from the 
 pavement, when the yeomanry had withdrawn, and 
 several took refuge on the table where we were read- 
 ing, near the window of the hotel, then partly open. 
 
 We have stated that a free and unrestrained privi- 
 lege of ascent into the atmosphere is a condition 
 essential to the very being of these remarkable insects. 
 The blaps mortisaga, it is known, will live three years 
 shut up, and deprived of food : we have kept the aranea 
 diadema two months under similar circumstances : in- 
 deed this insect has been preserved alive upwards of a 
 year, confined and without nutriment. The aranea 
 aeronautica, however, we find is impatient of confine- 
 ment, and will die, when imprisoned, sometimes within 
 twenty hours, or at most in a few days. 
 
37 
 
 We introduced one of the aeronautic spiders under 
 water ; but it did not appear injured ; and when with- 
 drawn, soon let itself fall by means of a thread. Placed 
 on water, at 66 F., it remained on its surface," without 
 attempting to escape by the propulsion of a thread, 
 taking repeated springs forward, then receding, and 
 patting the water rapidly with its tarsi, in the manner 
 of the squirrel. In water at 67 F., it was quiescent : 
 during repose at the bottom of a tumbler of water, 
 there issued from between the palpi an air-bell, which, 
 expanding, carried the spider to the surface ; the 
 aerial appendage thus diminishing the specific gravity, 
 and affording a striking elucidation of the habits of the 
 aranea aquatica. An aeronautic spider being put into 
 water at 94 F., remained at the bottom of the vessel, 
 sometimes at rest, sometimes locomotive. At length 
 it projected a thread upward, and by that means 
 wound itself, resting at intervals, to the surface of the 
 water : at the close of the experiment, the tempera- 
 ture had fallen to 86 F. One of these spiders, by 
 candle-light, darted instantaneously a thread to the 
 ceiling of the room (eight feet high) ; it described an 
 angle of about 80 with the horizon. By means of 
 the combined act of the tibia and tarsus, the thread 
 was made to spin with great rapidity on its axis ; 
 during this period it moved gradually toward the ver- 
 tical plane, and, being thus highly twisted, formed a 
 stronger medium of escape. 
 
 On one occasion we were making some experiments 
 with an aeronautic spider, during a warm day, and 
 brilliant sunshine, about noon ; the door of the room 
 was a-jar, and the insect, in the act of propelling its 
 threads in all directions, when it suddenly darted one 
 toward the door, in the direction of the influx-cur- 
 rent, perfectly horizontal, and in length fully ten 
 feet : the angle of vision being particularly favour- 
 
38 
 
 able, we observed an extraordinary aura, or atmo- 
 sphere round the thread, which we cannot doubt was 
 electric. * 
 
 We began our experiments and observations on this 
 curious subject on the 2d of June, 1822: one of these 
 spiders alighted on us, and glanced off from the hand 
 with considerable rapidity: thermometer 77 in the 
 shade. It is impossible to walk in the fields without 
 being saluted by several of these insects : they will be 
 chiefly noticed by alighting on the hat, and descending 
 by a thread before the face: in this way they are 
 easily caught, as they will drop into a chip-box, and 
 may be secured. When swinging from a support, they 
 will soon be perceived to ascend from the perpendi- 
 cular into the horizontal plane, at each ascent project- 
 ing a thread into the atmosphere ; and at length the 
 insect breaks from its anchorage, and ascends. Some- 
 times aeronautic spiders will take their flight imme- 
 diately from the surface on which they alight, if the 
 day be warm and sultry : but they generally descend 
 to from 6 to 18 inches, perhaps the better to insulate 
 themselves, and that, suspended by a pliant thread in 
 free space, they may more freely propel their threads 
 into the atmosphere. Not unfrequently the propulsion 
 of a solitary thread will bear them aloft ; but the air 
 must then be very warm, the sunshine bright, and 
 the electric character of the atmosphere considerable. 
 Sometimes the ascent is so rapid that the eye cannot 
 trace it ; at other times slow and majestic. Occasionally 
 the ascent is quite vertical, and at other times the in- 
 sect sails on the bosom of the air, either in the hori- 
 zontal plane, or at angles more or less open. It will be 
 also found that there are particular seasons of the year 
 best calculated for this singular exhibition : spring and 
 
 * A similar phenomenon appears to have beeen witnessed by 
 " Carolan," and recorded in the Annals of Philosophy. 
 
39 
 
 autumn are these periods. In summer we have found 
 it sometimes impracticable to determine their ascent : 
 they have detached themselves, after several vibrations, 
 and fallen to the ground. On one day (May, 1823,) this 
 remarkable fact was proved in the case of numbers. 
 The insect seems to be sufficiently aware when the 
 threads are buoyant, and perhaps the temporary sus- 
 pension in the horizontal plane may communicate this 
 information: aeronautic spiders make their appearance 
 early in the season. 
 
 Several circumstances concur to show the pheno- 
 menon of ascent to be electric : the propelled threads 
 do not interfere with each other ; they are divellent, 
 and this divergence seems to proceed from their being 
 imbued with similar electricity; and the character of 
 that electricity appeared to us to be an interesting 
 subject for subsequent research. When a conductor 
 is brought near the thread by which it suspends 
 itself, but, above all, to the flocculi or balls, they are 
 considerably deflected from the perpendicular, and 
 the horizontal fibre is attracted by the point: when 
 a stick of excited sealing-wax was brought near the 
 thread of suspension, it seemed to be repelled; con- 
 sequently the electricity of the thread is negative. 
 The descent of the thread is instantly determined by 
 bringing over it the excited sealing-wax. On the 3d of 
 July, 1322, at 4> P. M., thermometer 66 F., when two 
 aeronautic spiders, on separate threads, were brought 
 near to each other, a mutual repulsion supervened. 
 
 In one experiment made, the ascent of the insect 
 was so slow and tranquil, from the humidity of the 
 lower atmosphere and wetness of the terrestrial sur- 
 face, that I could easily catch it by following its pro- 
 gress : it moved in a plane parallel to the point of 
 departure. On the 4-th August, 1822, at 3 P. M., ther- 
 mometer 66, the ascent was slow and beautiful, the 
 
40 
 
 little aeronaut rising regularly in the vertical plane. 
 It was distinctly perceived, from the steady fixation of 
 the eye, and favourable angle of vision, until it had 
 attained an elevation of at least 30 feet, and was finally 
 lost in the vanishing point of elevation. 
 
 A variety of phenomena unite their testimony in 
 favour of the conclusions formed, and from what we 
 consider the direct method of induction. Were the 
 thread not electrical, we may be asked how it could 
 be propelled through the atmosphere in the vertical 
 plane, and remain there, contrary to the laws of gravi- 
 tation ? It is indeed remarkable, that the threads 
 should always remain in the precise plane in which 
 they are propelled, nor swerve from it. The constant 
 relative separation finds an analogy in similarly elec- 
 trified pith-balls, or the divergence of the filaments in a 
 glass plume, placed on the conductor of an excited elec- 
 trical machine, and the electric state of the atmosphere 
 will always be found to modify the phenomena. The 
 transit of the thread through a resisting medium, with- 
 out its suffering deflection in its path, seems to prove it 
 imbued with a power superior to, and able to overcome, 
 that resistance. 
 
 " I saw a spider swinging in the air, 
 And said, < Ambitious reptile, thou resemblest 
 Our worldly proud ones ; and, although thou tremblest 
 At every little gust, canst not forbear 
 To mount aspiringly. For what ? To fall 
 Humbled, as other soarers fall.' But, lo ! 
 I looked, and saw a film, minute and small, 
 Which the adventurer had suspended so 
 That his retreat was sure : and then I said, 
 ' Thou art not like the soarers of the world ; 
 For thou, if from thy seat of glory hurl'd, 
 Hast made thyself secure by this light thread, 
 Which from thy height will light thee safe again : 
 O, thou art wiser far than prouder men ! ' " BOWRING. 
 
CHAP. IV. 
 
 ASCENT OF THE SPIDER CONTINUED. GOCSAMER 
 
 THE WORK OF THE SPIDER. NECESSITY OF 
 
 DESCENT, ETC. PROPULSION OF THREADS CON- 
 JOINED OPINION OF MR. BLACKWALL AND MR. 
 
 RENNIE. THE MECHANICAL IMPULSE OF AERIAL 
 
 CURRENTS QUESTIONABLE AS TO EFFICIENCY. 
 
 ASCENT INTO THE ATMOSPHERE ASCRIBED BY MR. 
 BLACKWALL TO THE IMPULSION OF HEATED 
 EMANATIONS FROM THE GROUND. FACTS THAT 
 
 SEEM TO CONTROVERT THIS OPINION. FORMER 
 
 VIEWS REITERATED. BENEFICENT PURPOSE SUB- 
 SERVED BY THEIR ASCENT. 
 
 THE Germans connect with the gossamer in autumn 
 an allusion to the transient season: it is called " the flit- 
 ting summer." These films that often pervade the at- 
 mosphere have been called, in France, the " Virgin's " 
 threads while we give it to the sylphs : 
 
 " Lovers who may bestride the gossamer 
 That idles in the wanton air." 
 
 That the "sea of gauze covered with dew," which 
 decorates our meadows, and sparkles in the morning 
 with a summer or autumnal radiance, is the laborious 
 structure of the bird spider, is beyond a doubt. We 
 have seen more than a dozen in the space of a few 
 inches ; and Starck says that twenty or thirty are often 
 found on a single stubble : " he collected 2000 in half 
 an hour, and could easily have got twice as many had 
 he wished it." In a fine autumnal afternoon we have 
 
42 
 
 seen a newly ploughed field one tissue of beautiful 
 gossamer, and woven in the course of little more 
 than two hours. This reticular web intercepts the 
 dew ; and its pearly drops, of extreme minuteness, re- 
 fract the solar ray, and glow with all the beauties of 
 the prism. There can be little doubt that these are 
 carnivorous, like the rest of the species, and that they 
 obtain their food at very great elevations, and at alti- 
 tudes, we conceive, where they could not find moisture ; 
 they must of necessity therefore alight at night, weave 
 their web to entangle the dew, for this they greedily 
 absorb, and without which, if our observations and 
 experiments be correct, they could not exist. At first 
 sight, it might be supposed, that there exists no 
 necessity for their weaving such a reservoir for mois- 
 ture ; but its importance will appear when we consider 
 that the leaves of plants secrete carbonic acid gas at 
 night, and therefore the dew that condenses on foliage, 
 being necessarily saturated with this gas, might 
 prove a nauseous and fatal beverage to these crea- 
 tures. 
 
 The buoyant principle of these aeronauts has been 
 the subject of much speculation and curious conjec- 
 ture. " Its Creator," says the author of " The Natural 
 History of Insects," in that elegant little work, the 
 " Family Library," " hath laid for it a path in the 
 atmosphere ; and after this manner, though the insect 
 itself be heavier than the air, the thread that it spins 
 from its bowels is specifically lighter. This is its 
 balloon. The spider, left to itself, would drop to the 
 ground; but being tied to its thread, both are sup- 
 ported." Now, if this supposition of the ingenious 
 author were proved to be correct, the ascent of the 
 insect into the atmosphere admits of an easy solution, 
 and there is no more difficulty in the case than in 
 
43 
 
 that of the ascent of a balloon ; and Mr. Blackwall's 
 hypothesis of heated currents becomes at once super- 
 fluous and unnecessary: but it does occur, that the 
 thread is not specifically lighter than the air, but so 
 much heavier, that it immediately falls to the ground, 
 unless electrified, when it floats, or is borne up by 
 some other buoyant principle. " It is now generally 
 admitted," says this able author, " that several kinds 
 of spiders have a power of darting out a thread in 
 any direction, and to a comparatively great distance. 
 The mechanism, however, of this extraordinary effort 
 is not at all understood." This is an opinion charac- 
 terised by a laudable philosophical caution ; and he 
 also expresses a doubt, notwithstanding what Mr. 
 Blackwall has advanced on the subject, in his paper 
 published in the Linnaean Transactions, whether the 
 gossamer of the morning is ever carried up into the 
 air. Indeed a suspicion and scepticism may be very 
 naturally indulged on this question, since the gossa- 
 mer-web seems to remain just as it was, though not so 
 visible to the eye, after the entangled dew has exhaled 
 from it in the sunbeam ; and, indeed, so firmly cemented 
 to the spikes of grass are those threads, that they 
 cannot be detached entire. 
 
 There are two distinct phenomena connected with 
 this little aeronaut, which may be considered independ- 
 ently of each other. The first is, the power of pro- 
 pelling the threads into the air, and the principle by 
 which it is excited ; and the second, the cause which 
 promotes its ascent. Mr. Blackwall considers, in re- 
 ference to the first, that " air sensibly agitated " is 
 necessary to the projectile power, when the thread is 
 then " carried out in a line." We confess, however, 
 that to us it is not quite so obvious, how this effect 
 should be produced in the " wind's eye " of any such 
 
44 
 
 current, " either naturally or artificially produced." It 
 is also assumed, that " this velocity is equal, or nearly 
 so, to that with which the air moves ;" though such 
 a ratio of correspondence, traced to its exciting cause, 
 is not so clear. However, this observer persists in 
 " affirming that, in motionless air, spiders have not the 
 power of darting their threads through the space of half 
 an inch ; " or, in other words, we infer, of not being able 
 to " dart" their threads at all ; and Mr. Rennie, in kind 
 and faithful echo, adds, " we are quite certain that it 
 cannot throw out a single inch of thread without the 
 aid of a current of air." The latter is of opinion, 
 that " the globules, being carried up by the current 
 of air," are thus " drawn out into a thread : " but how 
 this can be effected counter to such a current, is not 
 so easily imagined. However, Mr. Rennie, on " pro- 
 ducing a stream of air, by blowing gently towards its 
 position," " had the pleasure of seeing a thread 
 streaming out from them" (the " spinnerets ") ; and 
 he was " convinced " also, " that it was the double or 
 bend of the thread which was blown into the air :" 
 and then follows a " reason" for the spider's doing so. 
 The premises on which these conclusions are founded 
 do not appear to us by any means quite so satisfactory 
 as they do to these observers. Some spiders being 
 imprisoned under a bell-glass, projected no threads 
 whatever ; and it is thus concluded they were unable 
 to do so. This opinion, however, is scarce warrantable. 
 It is not doubted that these insects are sagacious 
 creatures, and might in this case, also, have a " reason" 
 for not making the useless attempt : they surely saw 
 that a crystal hemisphere bounded their pathway, and 
 that their imprisoned space was circumscribed ; and all 
 this cunning might be reasonably assigned to them, 
 without extending their sagacity to the amount of 
 
45 
 
 Mahomet's spider, which insured the safety of the 
 flight of the prophet of Mecca. 
 
 Even on the supposition that such a current is 
 essential and necessary, it can only be regarded as 
 an exciting cause, rousing the insect, or imparting the 
 power to evolve its thread. The most interesting 
 part of the question is, whether it acts in a merely 
 mechanical capacity, or whether this excitement 
 be something more, and connected with a power su- 
 perior to what these views suppose. Bennet and 
 other electricians have long ago proved, that the im- 
 pulse of air on a delicate electroscope invested it 
 with electricity ; and this, if proved in the one case, 
 must of necessity be admitted in the other. In the 
 Mediterranean, Mr. Black appears to have ascertained 
 that winds, or currents of vapour of some continu- 
 ance, are negatively electrical, and the land breeze 
 in a state of positive electricity. It seems deducible, 
 therefore, that an electrical excitement may be the 
 consequence of such currents ; and it seems equally 
 obvious that insects are sufficiently sensible to atmo- 
 spherical electricity. Thus Huber seems to have 
 proved, that the secretion of honey is intimately con- 
 nected with electricity ; and that bees are far more 
 active and laborious before a storm, and when the wind 
 is south and the air warm and humid, than at other 
 times : and Kirby and Spence also observe, that " in- 
 sects seem particularly excited by a high electric state 
 of the atmosphere, and are then found more numerous 
 on the wing than at ordinary periods, and towards 
 evening ; and that, some time before the storm comes on, 
 various kinds may be then seen, that do not appear at 
 ordinary times : but immediately before the storm, all 
 disappear."* DTsjonval observes, that " animals are 
 
 * The extraordinary activity of the sw allow on these occasions 
 is a manifest proof. 
 
46 
 
 affected by natural electricity ; but no one more than 
 myself and my spiders." He had found, by repeated 
 observations, that the length of the spiders' threads cor- 
 responded with the electrical state of the atmosphere : 
 for in wet and stormy weather they were short, and 
 in fine weather were proportionally long. Now, as there 
 may exist other causes sufficiently powerful to act as 
 excitants, as well as a current of air, the question re- 
 mains as it was : besides, apart from an effect analo- 
 gous to electrical excitement, the modus operandi of a 
 current of air seems most obscure and perplexing. 
 
 There can, we think, be no doubt naturally enter- 
 tertained on the subject, that spiders can project their 
 threads in motionless air, peculiarly circumstanced. A 
 ray of solar light, for instance, will do it ; and the insect 
 will, in this case, sometimes dart out a thread many 
 yards long, perfectly vertical ; and, with the velocity of 
 an arrow, and an ascent equally rapid, is lost in a twink- 
 ling to the eye of the observer. Mr. White has the 
 following remark : " Last summer one alighted on my 
 book as I was reading in the parlour, and running to 
 the top of the page, and shooting out a web, took its 
 departure from thence. But what I most wondered 
 at was, that it went off with considerable velocity, in 
 a place where no air was stirring, and I am sure I did 
 not assist it with my breath ; so that these little 
 crawlers seem to have, while mounting, some locomo- 
 tive power, without the use of wings, and move faster 
 than the air, in the air itself." This phenomenon it has 
 been our fortune frequently to observe. The pheno- 
 menon recorded by Mr. Blackwall on the 1st October, 
 1826, accompanied by "a profusion of shining lines," 
 was observed when there was " no wind stirring ;" and 
 accordingly Mr. Rennie noticed that a spider " can 
 produce a line when there was scarcely a breath of 
 
47 
 
 air." But they seem " noticeable" beings, as Words- 
 worth would say ; for Mr. Rennie has actually seen 
 them " endeavouring to ascertain in what direction the 
 wind blew, or rather, which way any current of air 
 set, by elevating their arms, as we have seen sailors 
 do in a dead calm!" It certainly would be a matter 
 of difficulty to ascertain, " in a dead calm," what way 
 the wind blows, and we doubt whether even Maho- 
 met's spider could do this. We presume, at any rate, 
 that the property which spiders have of shooting out 
 their threads was much more early observed than is 
 generally supposed. " Spiders," saith Aristotle, " cast 
 their threads, not from within, as an excrement, as 
 Democritus would have it, but from without, as the 
 histrix doth its quills." * 
 
 The ascent of this apterous insect into the air is a 
 problem which very few have attempted to solve, and, 
 from the difficulty attendant upon it, many have de- 
 nied its possibility altogether. It seems to have 
 puzzled Mr. White a good deal : however, the following 
 supposition is hazarded : "I should imagine," says 
 he, " that those filmy threads, when first shot, might 
 be entangled in the rising dew, and so draw up spiders 
 and all by a brisk evaporation, into the regions where 
 clouds are formed ; and if the spiders have a power 
 of coiling and thickening their webs in the air, as 
 Dr. Lister says they have, then, when they become 
 heavier than the air, they must fall." Gay Lussac 
 considers the ascent of clouds, in the regions of air, 
 entirely ascribable to the impulse of ascending currents, 
 arising from the difference of temperature between the 
 surface of the earth and the atmosphere at great ele- 
 vations. Mr. Blackwall assumes the same impulsion, 
 
 * Grew. 
 
48 
 
 as accessary to the flight of the spider ; but the fact 
 proves that clouds are replenished with electricity, 
 and the sunbeam which impinges on them may be the 
 medium of supply : besides, the floods of heat which 
 descend to us in the sunbeams would more than 
 suffice to check or counteract these assumed emana- 
 tions ; and in the brightest sunshine, cceteris paribus, 
 the ascent of our little aeronaut will be most rapid. 
 This is not the place to discuss the phenomena of 
 the clouds ; but seeing that the solar ray will commu- 
 nicate electricity to them, and from the circumstance 
 that ammoniacal gas, by electric influence, may be ex- 
 panded into double its former volume, in all proba- 
 bility the elasticity of these aqueous reservoirs may 
 be enhanced by the same means, and their buoyancy 
 be thereby promoted. As far as we can discover, the 
 only tangible phenomenon on which Mr. Blackwall 
 hazards his conjecture is one perfectly unique, and 
 therefore sui generis ; for, as far as our information or 
 reading extends, nothing of the kind has ever been 
 seen by any other observer ; and if this be the case, 
 it is possible that it may have been a deceptio visus, or 
 some anomalous occurrence. " What more particularly 
 arrested my attention," says he, " was the ascent of 
 an amazing quantity of webs of an irregular compli- 
 cated structure, resembling ravelled silk of the finest 
 quality and clearest white : they were of various shapes 
 and dimensions, some of the largest measuring up- 
 wards of a yard in length, and several inches in 
 breadth in the widest part ; while others were almost 
 as broad as long." He proceeds to inform us that it 
 was " quickly perceived, these webs were not formed 
 in the air, as is generally believed, but at the earth's 
 surface." We much doubt, however, whether this 
 intuitive perception will be equally satisfactory to 
 
49 
 
 all. The cause of the ascent follows : " The ascending 
 current occasioned by the rarefaction of air contiguous 
 to the heated ground, acted with so much force as to 
 separate them from the objects to which they were 
 attached, raising them in the atmosphere to a perpen- 
 dicular height of at least several hundred feet ! " 
 This refers to the ascent of " masses of considerable 
 magnitude," formed by " the mechanical action of 
 gentle airs," i. e. " the lines of which they were com- 
 posed." These tumbled down again " in the after- 
 noon, when the upward current had ceased," but 
 " scarcely one in twenty," says Mr. Blackwall, " con- 
 tained a spider." This is the only record, we believe, 
 of an ascent ; but the descent of cobwebs from the 
 aerial regions we, in common with numbers, have 
 observed, and believe it is a phenomenon much less 
 common during the months of September and Octo- 
 ber than may be generally credited. It does not 
 appear that Mr. Rennie has observed any thing of this 
 kind, nor does he follow out Mr. Blackwall in his 
 hypothesis here, or say any thing about the cause of 
 the ascent: " blowing obliquely upon them," " blowing 
 towards it," and " blowing out," &c. seem to have sup- 
 plied sufficient exercise without such research. It is not 
 doubted by any one that the gossamer spider can pro- 
 ject into the air a multiplicity of threads when swing- 
 ing from a point ; and it is unreasonable therefore 
 surely to deny the power of doing so to these insects 
 when careering aloft on their silken parachutes, and 
 " sailing on the bosom of the air." When the gossamer 
 tissue is woven on some aerial plane, its continued 
 buoyancy is no more unaccountable than the floatage 
 of the clouds, if the operative causes be similar : and 
 as the " cloud of night " sinks upon the plain, so 
 does the gossamer spider revisit the earth ; and as 
 D 
 
50 
 
 clouds rise or fall or distil their rains agreeable to elec- 
 tric changes, so does the gossamer spider effect its 
 ascent, or descend to the earth. It seems super- 
 fluous and unnecessary to pursue Mr. Blackwall's view 
 of the matter at greater length ; and the multiplied 
 experiments of future observers must close the evi- 
 dence and settle the question. This hypothesis sup- 
 poses that the ascending current takes place in the 
 former part of the day, and the descending current 
 towards the afternoon ; but it cannot surely have escaped 
 observation, that the spider will ascend as readily and 
 as rapidly towards the afternoon of the day as in the 
 morning, and showers of cobwebs fall early in the 
 day as well as towards its close : thus Mr. White tells 
 us that " about nine, an appearance very unusual began 
 to demand our attention a shower of cobwebs falling 
 from very elevated regions, and continuing without 
 any interruption till the close of the day." 
 
 In a paper " On the Ascent of the Gossamer Spider," 
 published in the Transactions of the Wernerian So- 
 ciety, we endeavoured to sustain, that its buoyancy 
 and ascent were ascribable to an electrical principle, 
 described in the preceding chapter, an opinion, if we 
 mistake not, peculiar to us. Mr. Rennie indeed says 
 that the electricity of the thread " was started " by 
 D'Isjonval ; but so far from this being the case, 
 nothing of the kind, either directly or indirectly, has 
 been advanced by him : all that he tells us is, his 
 conviction that the spiders were excited or affected by 
 aerial electricity, though an anonymous writer in the 
 Annals of Philosophy talks about a stream of air or 
 some subtile principle accompanying the emission of 
 the thread. We are afraid of carrying analogy too 
 far in the illustration of this interesting phenomenon, 
 and are inclined to make the question as little compli- 
 
51 
 
 cated as possible, else we could refer to numerous 
 electrical principles in proof of what we have en- 
 deavoured to substantiate ; our experiments are far 
 too numerous for complete and minute detail, and 
 their multiplicity might confuse and complicate rather 
 than simplify and elucidate : nor shall we presume to 
 state in illustration, any thing but what we feel confi- 
 dent that we have the warrant and evidence of our 
 senses for, and that too on frequent repetition; only ob- 
 serving in this place, that on the assumed principles of 
 heated currents, the following queries seem to us to 
 admit of no satisfactory solution. How does it happen 
 that the ascent of the bird spider is slow at one time, 
 and rapid as an electric flash at another ? vertical at 
 one period, and afterwards horizontal, or in variously 
 inclined planes ? on one day requiring the propulsion 
 of numerous threads, and the next a solitary one 
 affording buoyancy enough ? ascending at any period 
 of the day in one case, and on the following day inca- 
 pable of effecting an ascent at all, whether at morn, 
 noon, or night, even with multiplied threads, and 
 when calorific emanations are assumed to be operative? 
 In fact, that a single upright thread should carry 
 up the spider in the vertical plane, on any such princi- 
 ple, seems to us utterly incomprehensible. 
 
 It may aid in the solution of the question pro- 
 pounded in these observations to premise, that when 
 at Rome in 1818. Signer Morrichini of that city in- 
 formed us he had found the rays of the solar spectrum 
 delicately electric; since that period, the electricity of 
 the solar ray has been more decidedly determined by 
 Savario Barlocci, and Carlo Mattrucci, of Forli. The 
 latter observed in his experiments, that a glass plate 
 never became electric when the disc of the sun was 
 obscured by clouds, and that a floating body will rise 
 D 2 
 
52 
 
 when electricity plays upon it, there can be no doubt. 
 By the experiments of Barlocci of Rome, it appears 
 that the decomposed red and violet rays of the 
 spectrum are efficient in producing an electric effect. 
 
 A spider's thread is an electric, and any such thread 
 projected through the air must necessarily become, 
 by such resistance as is occasioned by the atmosphere 
 and consequent friction, imbued with electricity. A 
 thread of glass is electrified under such circumstances, 
 and indeed Mr. W. Ritchie has proposed threads of 
 glass as pendants in his new balance of Torsion. 
 The current of air, or the sunbeam, is the primary 
 exciting cause ; and the electric character and condi- 
 tion of the thread are continued and preserved by the 
 continuous action of the electricity of the solar ray. 
 A cloud skreens the disc of the sun ; and the exciting 
 solar ray being thus intercepted, the buoyant cause 
 is withdrawn, and the spider descends, at least when 
 the entire electric energy is expended, though by the 
 propulsion of other threads ; and the temporary buoy- 
 ancy thus obtained from a partial evolution of elec- 
 tricity, the consequence of atmospheric friction, its 
 threads of attachment will then become a complete 
 parachute, and the rapid fall of the insect prevented. 
 We have made experiments and observations recently 
 to ascertain this point, and find that a thread detached 
 from the insect will receive electricity from the solar 
 ray, and ascend in the atmosphere in the sunbeam, 
 when without the sphere of attracting substances, 
 while a similar thread in the shade will not ascend at 
 all ; and we also find very light flocculi will also, having 
 absorbed electricity, ascend ; and if such should enter 
 the shade, they as immediately descend ; and we have 
 seen such in their descent brought by some casual 
 circumstance into the sunshine again, and as imme- 
 
53 
 
 diately afterwards effect a rapid ascent. Sometimes 
 the phenomenon of ascent is accompanied by one or 
 two divergent fasciculi, which, because Mr. Rennie has 
 never seen, he denies by implication : this is rather a 
 curious inference, and very much like a reductio ad 
 absurdum. Mr. Rennie talks much about his " study," 
 and certainly he could never witness the phenomenon 
 there ; but some may see what others have not seen, 
 nor ever may see. Our friend J. E. Bowman, Esq., 
 F. L. S., has, in a communication to us, described such 
 a phenomenon. * " Four or five, often six or eight, 
 extremely fine webs, several yards long, which waved 
 in the breeze, diverging from each other like a pencil 
 of rays : one had two distinct and widely diverging 
 fasciculi of webs, so that a line uniting them, would 
 have been at right angles to the direction of the 
 breeze." Now such divergence in these fasciculi of 
 fibres is utterly inexplicable, except on the supposition 
 of their being invested with electricity ; and they find 
 a beautiful analogy in the divergence that ensues, in 
 the fibres of a glass plume affixed to the conductor of 
 an electrical machine, when in action. We believe 
 that the threads, numerous as they sometimes are, in 
 no case interfere or combine with each other and ravel ; 
 this so far corroborates the presumptive evidence, that 
 they are all invested with the same kind of electricity. 
 Mr. Rennie flatly denies the electricity of the thread, 
 but his premises by no means seem to warrant his 
 conclusions. The spider, it appears, however, " took 
 no notice " of either excited sealing wax or excited 
 glass, even when brought " almost to touch the spin- 
 nerets ;" indeed our observer " had never anticipated 
 any other result ! " Now under such circumstances 
 
 * See Plate, figure 8. 
 D 1 6 
 
54 
 
 we engage that this little insect shall not only be 
 attracted by the excited electric, but adhere to it like 
 a bur ; for our part we have only to say, that we can- 
 not conjecture what such an experiment was meant 
 to prove, and it bears on nothing we had advanced on 
 the subject. Had the insect been placed on an elec- 
 tric excited by any means, and a conducting substance 
 been presented to the " spinnerets," we should have 
 seen some " method " in it. We are sorry to seem 
 thus severe ; but our animadversions, we honestly con- 
 ceive, are richly merited by the flippant manner in 
 which our name has been dragged into improper and 
 familiar notoriety. A fellow-labourer in the field is 
 entitled to courtesy ; and if his endeavours have been 
 to elicit truth, and he has been assiduous in experi- 
 mental research, his opinions deserve to be treated 
 with deference and respect, especially in so difficult a 
 question, and experiments so subtile and delicate. 
 We quote with much pleasure from a communication 
 to us made by our ingenious friend Mr. Dillon ; and 
 it will be seen he describes a phenomenon precisely 
 similar to that observed by Mr. Bowman : 
 
 " The fact which earliest arrested my notice, I can 
 remember, was the great deposit of moisture upon 
 the webs of certain descriptions of spiders, those, for 
 instance, spun in the hedges or on their banks, and on 
 the grass in the open fields ; and the entire absence of 
 any on the threads of the aeronautic spiders, so long 
 as they remained attached to them : in the former 
 instances the webs were all detached from the living 
 body of the spider. From some experiments which I 
 have made, there is reason to believe that moisture 
 alone, without any other kind of food, is calculated to 
 sustain the life of spiders (some species at least) for a 
 very considerable length of time. 
 
55 
 
 " I have, three or four different times, seen spiders being 
 borne down in the air, and falling as it were from great 
 heights, by reason of (as I conceived) an accidental 
 coiling up of their lines into flaky balls, something 
 resembling the condition of those gossamers which are 
 so frequently noticed descending from the air ; when 
 evidently it has been contrary to the intention (shall 
 I say) of the insect, who seemed very busy in the 
 mean time, and standing on the surface has suddenly 
 darted out a new line which has carried him aloft 
 again, while the heavy ball has fallen quite to the 
 ground. 
 
 " On the first ascent of a spider, from the top of 
 wooden palings, fof instance, it seems to be regardless 
 of the direction of the wind, and not to depend upon 
 it for any assistance whatever ; for I have very fre- 
 quently noticed a single thread shot out, right in the 
 teeth of the wind (as a sailor would describe it), nor 
 did it seem to experience any resistance. 
 
 " Sometimes, in a slow and regular descent from the 
 air, they have at first evinced a design to alight near 
 the spot where I have been standing ; but upon a near 
 approach would decline doing so, and rather sailing 
 around me, finally ascend again, and not always in the 
 same direction they came from. 
 
 " It is not at all times a single line which is the me- 
 dium of ascent ; sometimes it is a fasciculus of di- 
 vergent lines, and not unfrequently in the form of two 
 such fasciculi. I think the variation will be found 
 connected with the size of the spider. 
 
 " While in the air, they can communicate a strange 
 spiral motion to their line, which seems to have the 
 effect of altering its course. 
 
 " The most remarkable descent of the gossamer 
 which has happened for many years was on Sunday, 
 D 4- 
 
56 
 
 October the 1st, 1826. It was very extensive also, 
 being noticed here, at Chester, Wigan, and Liverpool, 
 on the same day, and in all which places its appear- 
 ance seems to have been precisely similar. The 
 descent of the gossamer will generally be found to 
 precede rain, a short time ; and sometimes accompa- 
 nying it, when the weather has been previously dry 
 for some time ; when it presents a very remarkable 
 appearance, and just such a one as I can imagine 
 Hooke to have witnessed when he formed the notion of 
 the clouds being composed of that material. 
 
 " On the 1 5th of March last, I was observing a very 
 extensive ascent of spiders, chiefly of two kinds only? 
 and rather of large size. They mostly ascended, not 
 by single threads, but the whisk-shaped fasciculi as 
 before described. I remarked they did not all ascend 
 and float away in the same direction, but frequently 
 directly opposite one to another. I had with me an 
 accurate pocket compass made by Jones of London, 
 which enabled me to determine with precision, that 
 in all such cases, without one single exception, the 
 ascents were made at right angles with the magnetic 
 meridian." 
 
 Currents of wind, invested with the opposite state 
 of electricity, will facilitate the descent of the gossamer 
 spider. In the month of July last we were on board 
 the " Royal Adelaide" of 120 guns, then in ordinary 
 at Devonport. Along with other information the 
 officer on board informed us, that he was constantly 
 annoyed with small spiders alighting on the ship, with 
 a dry easterly wind. In the first edition of our 
 " Treatise on Atmospherical Electricity," p. 81., we 
 described the following phenomenon in experiments 
 made with the aeronautic spider, in a hay-field, on the 
 28th of July last : " Three aeronautic spiders were 
 
57 
 
 allowed to ascend from the same spot, when it was 
 observed that each one moved in a different direction. 
 Clouds afterwards collected and obscured the sky, and 
 then our attempts to favour their ascent were un- 
 availing ; not one suceeded, and all fell like lead to the 
 ground." We felt some degree of gratification to find 
 that a similar phenomenon had been observed by 
 Mr. J. Thompson of Hull, under different circum- 
 stances : our observations were unknown to, and inde- 
 pendent of, each other: " On the 19th of July a 
 number of aeronautic spiders (at any rate, small black 
 spiders capable of flight,) by some means found their 
 way into St. John's church. Although not a proper 
 place for observations on natural history, there were 
 so many that, without shutting my eyes, I could not 
 fail noticing them. The tops of ladies' bonnets were 
 generally the places whence they commenced their 
 flight ; and in it they seem not to be confined to any 
 particular direction. Some flew upwards at a slight 
 angle ; some north, some south, some east, some west ; 
 and in so doing, several passed so near each other 
 that I cannot conceive, as they passed in opposite 
 directions, that any current of air conveyed them ; as 
 two opposite currents could scarce exist so often close 
 to each other." If the thread is shot horizontally, 
 they follow in that direction ; if vertical, in that plane : 
 the position of the thread remains. No current emanat- 
 ing from the earth can be supposed to act downward. 
 It is somewhat difficult to ascertain what purpose 
 their ascent in the atmosphere subserves ; but seeing 
 that the exuviae of gnats (culex pipiens) have been 
 found entangled in the meshes of the falling cobwebs, 
 in all probability they may thin the destructive ranks 
 of some such kindred annoyance, which if not destroyed 
 might descend upon us with all the envenomed ven- 
 D 5 
 
58 
 
 geance of the morm of Armenia. Minute spaphylini, 
 for instance, did their numbers increase, would speedily 
 deprive us of the economy of vision : on the other 
 hand, the aranea aeronautica may occasionally be- 
 come the prey of insectivorous birds and even of other 
 insects, though the altitude to which they soar will be 
 a tolerable security. The swallow seldom reaches their 
 ultimate elevation, and but few insects can rival them 
 in this respect, though we have met the bee on the 
 summit of the Rhigi, among the wild flowers there, and 
 the ausonia, we believe, scales the loftiest range of the 
 Alps. Some prowling insect on rapid wing, on two 
 occasions, carried off our aerial spider when pendent 
 from its attachment. 
 
59 
 
 CHAP. V. 
 
 SUBLIMITY OF THE OCEAN. ITS POPULATION. 
 PHOSPHORESCENCE OF THE SEA. EXPERIMENTS 
 WITH LUMINOUS SALT WATER. LUMINOSITY OF 
 THE BALTIC. INCREASED BRILLIANCY A PRESAGE 
 
 OF THE STORM. SOME BRITISH LUMINOUS MOL- 
 
 LUSC^E DISCRIMINATED. PECULIAR LUMINOUS 
 
 EFFECTS DESCRIBED BY NAVIGATORS. 
 
 THE luminosity of the sea has attracted attention in 
 every age, and from the earliest period of human 
 history. Its excitement by the movement of the 
 " leviathan" through the depths of the ocean is thus 
 characterised, " He maketh a path to shine after 
 him * ;" nor could it be more literally descriptive of a 
 phenomenon, at once the admiration of the naturalist 
 and the wonder of the mariner. The ocean is in 
 itself a magnificent and sublime object of contempla- 
 tion its vast expanse, and its ' world of waters," a 
 trackless pathway, whereby the adventurous mariner 
 circumnavigates the globe its waves rolling far and 
 wide, are in the dark and stormy night gilded with 
 fires instinct with life its submarine mountains 
 clothed with a vegetation unknown to the land, and its 
 coral trees and caves where the sea-flowers, as the 
 actinias, unfold, and the lily encrinite may expand its 
 radii where all the loveliest and most magnificent of 
 the Buccina, Murices> and Volutes repose undisturbed, 
 
 * Job, xli. 32. 
 D 6 
 
60 
 
 their paintings and their symmetry alike lost to 
 human vision, until the storm rakes up a specimen 
 of these beautiful structures, or some friendly wave 
 casts a cone or cowry on the shore. In its wondrous 
 meadows browse the dugongs of Indian seas, like cattle 
 in our own. Some of its inhabitants are living electric 
 machines or Galvanic batteries, such as the TricMurus 
 indicus and Tetraodon electricus of tropical seas, and 
 the Torpedo vulgaris of the British coast. Then the 
 light that sparkles in its waters or flashes like lightning 
 through its veins. These are a few of the wonders of 
 the deep ; and though it might be reasonably supposed 
 that the latter phenomenon, so common yet so curious, 
 would have been made the subject of rigorous exam- 
 ination, it does not appear to have engaged philosophi- 
 cal scrutiny until very lately, and even at a compara- 
 tively recent period, the most absurd conjectures were 
 hazarded on the question. Thus it is said, by Olof 
 Wasserstrom, in the Transactions of the Swedish 
 Academy for 1798, that the phosphorescence of the sea, 
 in northern countries, may sometimes be occasioned 
 by the small and very thin needles of ice which almost 
 cover its surface, being broken in pieces by the agita- 
 tion of the waves, and thus emitting a light, may assist 
 in giving a luminous character to the sea ! This is 
 hypothesis strained to its utmost ; for the cause that 
 produces the phenomenon in warmer climes must be 
 operative in higher latitudes. Some fish, such as the 
 herring, mackerel, whiting, &c. yield light in the inci- 
 pient stage of decay : in such cases, we believe, it pro- 
 ceeds from adhering, and perhaps parasitic, luminous 
 animalculae, the evolution of light being the effect of 
 the slight increment of temperature produced by the 
 commencement of animal decomposition. Dr. Ure 
 has given us some curious and interesting remarks on 
 
61 
 
 this subject : "A solution of one part of sulphate of 
 magnesia in eight of water is the most convenient 
 menstruum for extracting, retaining, and increasing 
 the brilliancy of this light. Sulphate and muriate of 
 soda also answer in a proper state of dilution with 
 water. When any of the saline solutions is too con- 
 centrated, the light disappears, but instantly bursts 
 forth again from absolute darkness by dilution with 
 water. I have frequently made this curious experi- 
 ment with the light procured from whiting. Common 
 water, lime-water, fermented liquors, acids even very 
 dilute, alkaline leys, and many other bodies, perma- 
 nently extinguish this spontaneous light. Boiling water 
 destroys it; but congelation merely suspends its exhi- 
 bition, for it re-appears on liquefaction. A gentle heat, 
 increases the vividness of the phenomenon, but lessens 
 its duration."* These phenomena are by no means 
 incompatible with the idea suggested, as to their 
 dependence on luminous matter, connected with 
 marine animalculae : we know, for instance, in refer- 
 ence to the circumstance of dilution, that when the 
 water which contains the gordius evaporates, it shrivels 
 and dries up ; it may be then preserved for any length 
 of time, but when tranferred to water, it soon lives and 
 moves : a similar thing precisely happens to the 
 rotifer ; and as to the relations of heat and cold to the 
 luminous matter, analogies will be found in the observ- 
 ations and experiments on the light and luminous 
 matter of the glow-worm. 
 
 On opening an oyster, luminous matter, emitting a 
 bluish light resembling a star, has been oberved in the 
 shell ; and, on being taken from the animal, it extended 
 nearly to half an inch in length. Under the lens it 
 
 * " Dictionary of Chemistry," article Light. 
 
62 
 
 was found to consist of three distinct animalculae, each 
 of which was beautifully luminous, and altogether re- 
 sembled a bluish star. We have repeatedly found 
 luminous marine insects entangled among the minute 
 algcB and fusci which invested the shell of the rock 
 oyster ; and in the case cited, they might have been 
 introduced in the act of separating the shells. The 
 luminous spark in the oyster, like the enchanted lamp 
 of Armida, though caused by an intruder, is an ignis 
 fatuus, that may thus allure to destruction. 
 
 In the Transactions of the Wernerian Society *, 
 Capt. Wauchope, R. N., has introduced some remarks 
 on the phosphorescence of the sea, which go to prove it 
 to be connected with luminous animals : "In Septem- 
 ber, 1816," says he, in lat, 4 5 C 2' S., long, 9 19' E., 
 I observed this shining appearance very strongly, which 
 induced me to draw a bucket of water for the purpose 
 of examining it. I had it suspended, so as to have as 
 little motion as possible ; when this was the case, it 
 shone very little ; but the moment it was disturbed it 
 shone with great beauty. I next got a little lime-juice, 
 and put a wine-glassful of this acid into the bucket, 
 when the shining particles began to- move about in all 
 directions ; sometimes going only as far as the middle 
 of the bucket, then turning and taking a zig-zag direc- 
 tion. These motions certainly had every appear- 
 ance of depending upon the will of an animal : they 
 shone with much splendour, and some appeared as 
 large as the tip of one's ringer. Another glass of lime- 
 juice instantly destroyed them ; for, at the instant the 
 second quantity was poured in, the water appeared to 
 be one blaze of fire, and no motion or disturbance could 
 make it shine after this. 
 
 * Vol. iv. p. 171, &c. 
 
63 
 
 " I then drew up some more water, which shone as 
 before : part of this I kept during the night in an open 
 vessel, and part tightly corked up in a bottle ; and the 
 next night, on examining these two portions, I found 
 that the water in the open vessel shone pretty brightly, 
 but not so bright as it did ; and that which had been 
 corked up did not shine in the least the want of air 
 seeming to have killed the animals. They appear to 
 me to be coated with some phosphorescent matter ; 
 for I happened to rub one of them upon my fore-finger, 
 and it left a streak of light, for a few seconds, as long 
 as the first joint of my finger." The experiment with 
 the acid corroborates Dr. Ure's interesting one of a 
 similar description, and seems to add plausibility at 
 least to our view of this phosphorescence. Mr. Pfaff 
 has made some remarks on the phosphorescence of the 
 Baltic. This appears to be chiefly exhibited from the 
 end of summer to November, and is ascribed to the 
 presence of various molluscce. On an electric current 
 being passed through a tube containing sea water re- 
 cently taken up, there appeared a momentary exhibi- 
 tion of luminous points in continued motion : acids, 
 ammonia, and other excitants, produced a similar 
 effect. Mr. Bywater informed us that he had, some 
 years ago, increased the brilliancy of sea water in 
 one of the docks at Liverpool, by pouring on it acids, 
 &c., and he found, as Mr. Pfaff has since done, that 
 quiescence, such as that produced by oil, extinguished 
 the light. 
 
 On our voyage from Leghorn to Civita Vecchia, we 
 remarked that the Mediterranean was particularly re- 
 fulgent, prior to a storm subsequently encountered. 
 The remarkably luminous phenomena of the sea at 
 Hastings, in December, 1822, was succeeded by a ter- 
 rific gale. We are in possession of numerous illustra- 
 
64 
 
 live facts which verify the interesting conclusion ; 
 particularly one by a gentleman of Macclesfield, who 
 was much struck with the extraordinary luminosity of 
 the sea, off the mouth of the Mersey, before a dreadful 
 storm, in which two packets were wrecked on that part 
 of the coast. We believe we may claim the priority 
 of considering the luminous appearance of the sea, in 
 its increase of brilliancy or appearance on the coast, 
 as connected with this new meteorological feature 
 the coming storm. These circumstances led us to 
 investigate more particularly the phenomenon on our 
 own shores; and the luminosity which the sea pre- 
 sented some years ago engaged our attention. It was 
 succeeded by a gale, and may perhaps be considered 
 its presage : the sea sparkled with great brilliancy, and 
 seemed to reflect a miniature celestial scene. A more 
 attentive survey appeared to present at least two distinct 
 phenomena of this description : one seemed to scintillate 
 and was minute ; while the other exhibited an undu- 
 latory movement of the phosphoric kind, apparently 
 commencing at the centre, and diverging in concentric 
 circles to the edge of the discs, sometimes apparently 
 an inch in diameter. Immediately before the gale, we 
 saw a solitary gleam ; but during its continuance could 
 discover none, as to the waves, at least, which washed 
 the shore. In reference to the connection of the lu- 
 minosity of the sea with the storm, this idea was first 
 sustained in our paper, transmitted November, 1819, 
 to the Wernerian Society, and since published in their 
 Transactions. The following extract, from " Prince 
 Maximillian's Travels in Brazil," would countenance 
 the same view of it : " During a storm the sea was 
 very luminous, the intermediate surface of the ocean 
 seemed to be on fire, and day after day the storm con- 
 tinued to rage with unabated fury." We feel inclined 
 
65 
 
 to attribute the increase of light in the sea, prior to 
 the storm, to an increment of temperature, which is the 
 precursor of a gale. On 12th July, 1823, at 6 P.M. 
 in 30 fathoms water, off the point of Dromore, in St. 
 George's Channel, air, 55.5 F., the surface water was 
 4-9, wind S.W. At 30 minutes past 8 P. M., off the 
 Mull of Galloway, in 60 fathoms water, air 54, water 
 52.5, wind S. S. W., commencement of a gale : 
 13th of July, at 20 minutes past 11 A. M., air 62, 
 water 56, off the Sand-banks of Liverpool. 
 
 Hence the stormy pettrel, the dread of sailors, 
 apprized of the approaching storm, follows in the ship's 
 wake, the molluscae, roused to the surface by the 
 impending gale, may be its food. The flocks of this 
 bird (Procellaria pelagica] that have been occasionally 
 seen are really almost incredible. Judging from the 
 extent and depth, " ranks behind ranks close wedged," 
 of these congregated masses, 150 millions have been 
 enumerated. 
 
 The great American bittern, so called in Wilson's 
 " American Ornithology," is stated by Mr. Franklin 
 Peale of Philadelphia and others to possess the power 
 of evolving a light from its breast equal to that of a com- 
 mon torch, and thus illuminating the water wherein 
 it takes its prey. This asserted fact, however, may 
 depend entirely on the attachment of luminous mol- 
 luscae cohering to the breast, in virtue of some adhesive 
 secretion. The stormy pettrel has indeed been ob- 
 served to suck its breast feathers, imbued with oleagi- 
 nous matter, collected, however, it may be supposed, 
 from the surface of the ocean. Thus the Baya or 
 Tenawhit of India illuminates its nest with the Fulgora 
 candelaria, causing them to adhere to its walls by clay. 
 
 From the edge of the pier at Stranraer, on the coast 
 of Scotland, we took up a small portion of sea water, 
 
66 
 
 including some luminous substance. Jt was sometime, 
 indeed, before the existence of any foreign body could 
 be recognised : at length the shadow of an animal, in 
 rapid movement, appeared depicted on the bottom of 
 the basin, itself almost as transparent as the medium 
 in which it floated. The animal, when at rest, exhi- 
 bited a somewhat crescent form, and in swimming, 
 described a tortuous motion ; the verge or fringe 
 seemed to be that from whence the light was derived, 
 but of which the whole body occasionally partook, and 
 had every appearance of being a species of medusa. It 
 died a few minutes after we had received it, which was 
 attributed to the light of the candle rather than to 
 an increment of temperature in the medium. When 
 taken up on the point of a probe, it had the ap- 
 pearance and nearly the consistency of jelly : it 
 was diaphanous, and presented a spherical figure of 
 about one sixth of an inch in diameter. A further 
 quantity of sea water presented to us another, though 
 larger medusa, about three fourths of an inch in dia- 
 meter : it also died very shortly after we brought it 
 home ; and perhaps the light, as in the former case, 
 was the cause. Mr. Macartney observes, that the 
 medusa always retreats from the surface as soon as the 
 moon rises ; he also states that exposure to daylight 
 deprives them of the power of shining. 
 
 By agitating the salt water containing a luminous 
 body occasional gleams were exhibited ; and being 
 transferred to a basin of fresh water, it sunk to the 
 bottom like a falling star. The effect here was of the 
 most beautiful description ; there appeared strings 
 of minute beads of fire, like a chain illuminated by 
 electricity. On stirring the fluid, these luminous points 
 were disentangled, and displayed a hemisphere of mimic 
 stars : the floating lights soon, however, ceased to illu- 
 
67 
 
 minate the fluid mass ; agitation did not restore the 
 effect, though a few drops of acid caused a solitary gem 
 to twinkle. In the estimate of this phenomenon, we 
 scarcely know whether to ascribe it to the presence of 
 the pyrosom pygmcea, studded with luminous young, 
 or salpcB. It might be the latter that were vested with 
 this brilliant and beautiful ornament ; and we presume 
 that these living fires were subsequently, by the me- 
 chanical agitation, separated from their attachment, 
 and might be luminous ova or young. On transfer- 
 ing a luminous medusa, taken off the mouth of the 
 river Nen, on the coast of Norfolk, to a glass of 
 fresh water, the luminous matter in its descent con- 
 tracted like a purse-mouth. It seems quite certain, 
 therefore, that the luminosity of the sea is a pheno- 
 menon dependent on the presence of luminous marine 
 animals. The following interesting description, 
 in further corroboration of the opinion, is extracted 
 from Tuckey's " Narrative of an Expedition, &c.* :" 
 " The cancer fulgens was conspicuous ; in another 
 species, when put into the microscope by candle-light, 
 the luminous matter was observed to be in the brain, 
 which, when the animal was at rest, resembled a most 
 brilliant amythest, about the size of a large pin's head, 
 and from which, when it moved, darted flashes of a 
 brilliant silvery light. Beroes, beautiful holothurias, 
 and various gelatinous animals, were also taken up in 
 great numbers. Indeed, the Gulf of Guinea appears 
 to be a most prolific region in this sort of animals." 
 
 The late Professor Smith, of Christiana, considered 
 that the luminous appearance which diffuses itself over 
 the whole surface of the sea, in the Atlantic, arose 
 from a dissolved slimy matter ; and that the most 
 minute glittering particles, when highly magnified, had 
 
 * London, 4to. 1818. p. 49. 
 
68 
 
 the appearance of solid spherical bodies. * Doubtless 
 these luminous particles were owing to salpce, or the 
 pyrosoma atlantica. 
 
 Mr. Langstaff says. " In going from New Holland 
 to China, about half an hour after sunset, the sea pre- 
 sented a milky appearance ; the ship seemed to be sur- 
 rounded by ice covered with snow. A bucket of water 
 being hauled up and examined in the dark, discovered 
 a great number of globular bodies, about the size of a 
 pin's head, linked together : the chains thus formed 
 did not exceed three inches in length, and emitted a 
 pale phosphoric light. By introducing the hand into 
 the water, several chains of the luminous globules 
 were raised: the globules were so transparent that 
 they could not be perceived when the hand was taken 
 into the light."! These appeared to be the linked 
 young of some salpce. We find that Riville describes 
 a similar phenomenon off the Malabar coast : " The 
 surface of the sea, gently agitated, was covered with light 
 sparkling like stars ; each wave which broke around the 
 vessel gave out a very lively light, and like in colour 
 to that of cloth of silver electrified in the dark. The 
 waves which seemed from time to time to be con- 
 founded with one another, formed at the horizon a 
 plain covered in appearance with snow, and the track 
 of the vessel was of a lively and luminous white strewed 
 with brilliant and azure-coloured points." This pheno- 
 menon Mr. Thompson thinks ascribable to a crustaceous 
 
 * " That luminous appearance which diffuses itself over the 
 whole surface of the sea arises from a dissolved slimy matter, 
 which spreads its light like that from phosphorous The most minute 
 glittering particles, when highly magnified, had the appearance of 
 small and solid spherical bodies." See Professor Smith' s Journal, 
 #c. p. 258. 
 
 f Phil. Trans. 1810. p. 249. et seq. 
 
69 
 
 animal, though not a lynceus, as supposed by Latreille ; 
 for this is afresh-water animal. Latreille considers that 
 the luminous globules found in a congeries in the poste- 
 rior part of the shell were ova. Captain Horsburgh 
 describes a similar phosphorescency off Malabar during 
 the monsoons as being " a regular white colour like 
 milk, and did not continue above ten minutes." A 
 similar phenomenon appears to be frequent in the 
 Ban da seas. 
 
 Captain Tuckey says, that in the Gulf of Guinea 
 the ship " at night seemed to be sailing in a sea of 
 milk." The molluscae that were taken up here and 
 examined were pellucid salpcB, and squillce : of the 
 genus cancer thirteen different species were taken; 
 eight of these were crabs, and the rest shrimps. 
 
 Mr. Franklyn, a Russian gentleman, and who cir- 
 cumnavigated the globe in one of the late voyages of 
 discovery, tells us that cceteris paribus the phosphores- 
 cence of the sea is brighter in high latitudes than in 
 tropical climes. 
 
70 
 
 CHAP. VI. 
 
 PHOSPHORESCENCE OF THE OCEAN CONTINUED. 
 VARIOUS SOURCES OF LIGHT CONNECTED WITH 
 MARINE ANIMALS. LUMINOUS SEAWEED. LUMI- 
 NOUS TESTACEA. SPECIFIC DIFFERENCES IN THE 
 
 PHOSPHORESCENCE OF THE OCEAN. VARIOUS 
 
 ANIMALS CONTRIBUTING TO THIS LUMINOSITY. 
 
 THIS INVESTMENT OF LIGHT A BENEFICENT PRO- 
 VISION. 
 
 CAPTAIN HOME, It. N., communicates to the editor 
 of the Quarterly Journal of Science the fact, that the 
 cause of the brilliant light observed in the sea weed 
 thrown on the beach at Lancing, on the coast of 
 Sussex, is the Sertularia volubilis of Ellis, or the 
 Clytia volubilis of Lamouroux, not however described 
 as luminous : it is evident, therefore, that this animal, 
 if it be not invested with a constant light, becomes 
 at any rate luminous under peculiar circumstances. 
 On the 8th of December last, and three following 
 days, a hard blowing S.W. wind cast a considerable 
 quantity of sea weed on the beach, which was 
 covered with it to the depth of more than two feet 
 in some places. A small quantity of the most bril- 
 liant was collected at night, and this appears to have 
 been invariably that left at the first of the ebb. By de- 
 taching a luminous speck, Captain Home ascertained, 
 by the aid of the microscope, that this was occasioned 
 by adhering insects. The light would sometimes 
 remain steady for about five seconds, often less, and 
 when it ceased, was renewed by the contact of the 
 
71 
 
 finger, which may be either ascribed to mechanical 
 excitement, or increased temperature. Though no 
 light could be seen by day, the same sea weed, pre- 
 served until the evening, became as brilliant as any 
 other. This last we are inclined to ascribe to the 
 hygrometric state of the atmosphere at this period, 
 and the deliquescent affinity of the saline matter that 
 adhered. The testaceous tenant of the mytilus litho- 
 phagus, or burrowing mussel, is phosphorescent. The 
 fishermen in the bay of Naples are said, sometimes, to 
 place the animal in the sun, and afterwards to rub their 
 hands and face over with the moisture which exudes, 
 by which the skin is rendered luminous ; in this case, 
 solar light, or the heat it imparts, seems to rouse 
 into existence the dormant light of the ova of lumi- 
 nous molluscse, perhaps in this case parasitic. The 
 pholas also emits a phosphorescent light, a phenome- 
 non noticed by the ancients, and recorded by Pliny, 
 who says, that it gives light in the mouth of him that 
 eats it. The fresher it is, the more luminous it be- 
 comes ; and when dry, it may be revived, by the ap- 
 plication of either salt or fresh water. Spirit destroys 
 it, also acids ; caustic potassa and muriate of am- 
 monia exceedingly reduce its phosphorescence : milk 
 is rendered luminous by it ; this ceases by the addi- 
 tion of sulphuric acid, but potassa revives it, ap- 
 parently by neutralising the acid. It is stated, that 
 a single pholas (pholas dactylus ? ) renders seven 
 ounces of milk so luminous, that surrounding objects 
 are rendered visible by it, and the presence of atmo- 
 spheric air is said to be necessary. When the pholas 
 was preserved in honey, it maintained its luminous 
 character for more than twelve months, and the light 
 could be evolved at pleasure by the application of 
 warm water. 
 
72 
 
 The inhabitant of the Helix ianthina, (lanthina of 
 Lamarck) is possessed of a similar phosphorescent 
 character, and stains the hands of a purple colour, 
 not easily obliterated. This testaceous animal is 
 found in considerable numbers, floating on marine 
 substances. The shell is extremely light, and from 
 its being so fragile, it is seldom found perfect round 
 the lip : among those in our cabinet, there is one of 
 tolerable size, and the shell is entire. The violet 
 helix seems to float and swim at liberty, from in- 
 flating a membranous bag, apparently consisting of a 
 series of minute vesicles. The sea star, found in the 
 Persian Gulf, is said to be circular and very lumi- 
 nous, gleaming like a full moon. Mr. Thompson, in 
 his " Zoological Reseaches," (No. II. April, 1829,) con- 
 siders the phosphorescence of the sea under three 
 sections or classes. The most common or familiar is 
 that exhibited whenever water is slightly agitated by 
 winds or currents, or in the movement of a ship 
 through the ocean : another " resembles the red gold 
 and silver rain of the pyrotechnist." * The former is 
 accompanied by a paler light, transient gleams illu- 
 minating the water to an extent of several feet, some- 
 what resembling the lightning of tropical regions ; 
 diffused flashes issuing from one cloud to another, in 
 constant succession, over the entire visible hemi- 
 sphere. Spallanzani notices a phenomenon of the 
 latter kind, in the Straits of Messina, and by him 
 ascribed to the presence of medusa. The appearance 
 was that of a bright torch of a lively white ; and as 
 the medusa is locomotive, so the light seemed to be 
 variable, being stronger in the systole than the dias- 
 tole. " Sometimes," he observes, " it continues for a 
 
 * Page 38. 
 
73 
 
 quarter of an hour, half an hour, or more, and at 
 others is suddenly extinguished, and does not appear 
 for some time." * " These luminous medusae are called 
 at Messina, bromi; and in the Lipari Islands, candel- 
 lieri di mare." A third kind of phosphorescency is 
 peculiar to gulfs, bays, and shores, and is very easily 
 excited, by any thing in fact which stirs the water, 
 since the mere movement of a fish is sufficient to ex- 
 cite a gleam. In this case it resembles a sea of milk, 
 of a pale diffused light, as when phosphorized alcohol 
 is poured on the surface of cold water. The first and 
 last of these phenomena appear ascribable to the 
 presence of minute crustacce or mollusca. The inter- 
 mediate variety seems to be the effect of larger 
 medusas, and of these only two have been discovered, 
 the medusa pellucens and m. spallanzani. The last 
 description of luminosity is comparatively rare, and 
 the appearance, described by Mr. Thompson, wit- 
 nessed in the bay of Gibraltar, was, as if " passing 
 through a sea of melted silver ;" this phenomenon 
 was occasioned by numerous luminous points, less 
 than the smallest pin's head, of the softest and most 
 destructible tenderness : closely inspected, they ap- 
 peared like hemispherical masses of a colourless jelly, 
 and are supposed, with much probability, to have been 
 some species of small medusae. 
 
 The cancer fulgens\ of Sir Joseph Banks (noctiluca 
 Banksii of Mr. Thompson), or luminous shrimp, is found 
 towards Rio Janeiro, (between lat. 5 25' S., and 29 
 30' N., and West long. 17 18', and 32 55', they were 
 found abundant ; and it is evident their geographical 
 range is considerable. " The motions of the animal 
 were lively, and it gave out brilliant scintillations 
 
 * Travels, vol. iv. p. 229. f See Plate, fig. 5. 
 
74 
 
 in the dark. It was perfectly transparent; tinged 
 here and there with orange red, particularly its an- 
 terior feet, and showed the circulation most dis- 
 tinctly." 
 
 Lucifer is a molluscous animal, which contributes in 
 tropical regions to the phosphorescence of the sea. It 
 is colourless and transparent, with the exception of 
 the intestinal canal. It is altogether a very odd-look- 
 ing creature, somewhat vermiform ; its eyes are ex- 
 tremely large, and protuberant, terminating in diffuse 
 foot-stalks. It was taken by Mr. Thompson in the 
 Atlantic, N. lat. 11 56', W. long. 32 55'. The 
 podop.sis, or hammer-headed shrimp, has a distant re- 
 semblance to the preceding, and was also caught in 
 the Atlantic, N. lat. 29 30', W. long. 32 55'. 
 
 Besides a general luminosity in the ocean, it would 
 seem that there are instances of a more local or spe- 
 cific kind. Mr. Thompson informs us that one is pre- 
 sented to the mariner under the semblance of thick 
 bars of metal about a foot long, as it were ignited to 
 whiteness, and scattered over the surface of the ocean : 
 this apparent incandescence is seen close to the vessel, 
 and to follow after, and is owing to the pyrosoma 
 atlantica, a compound animal, resembling a hollow 
 cylinder, of a transparent gelatinous substance open at 
 one end, and protuberant on its surface : this was first 
 discovered and figured by Peron and Le Sueur : the 
 light appears to pervade the entire substance of the 
 animal, and is of a bluish or greenish tinge like a pale 
 sapphire or aqua-marine. This phenomenon may be 
 often witnessed by vessels bound to India, or the 
 eastward of the Cape of Good Hope, in calm lati- 
 tudes near the line. Its geographical distribution had 
 been limited to 19 and 20 longitude W. of Paris, and 3 
 and 4? of N. lat. Mr. Thompson, however, met with it 
 
75 
 
 in latitude 12 N., and extending from W. long. 16 
 to 20. Toward the equator, a smaller species made 
 its appearance intermixed with the other, the light 
 " seemingly arranged in rings or whirls resembling a 
 gem studded with the diamond or opal." It did not 
 exceed an inch in length, and had seven or eight 
 rows of dots, and a somewhat contracted aperture. 
 These were in all probability either its ova or its 
 young. This last is the pyrosoma pygmcea * of Mr. 
 Thompson. 
 
 Another kind of luminous appearance was observed 
 by Captain Horsburgh in the Arabian Sea. It some- 
 what resembled the oniscus, and was about one third 
 of an inch long. " During the time," he says, " that 
 any fluid remained in the animal, it shone brilliantly, 
 like the fire-fly." It was also found by Mr. Thompson 
 off the southern extremity of Madagascar, and again 
 on the Agullas banks near the Cape of Good Hope. 
 It is the sappharina indicator of Mr. T. f This crea- 
 ture is described as beautifully luminous by night, and 
 by day resembling the finest blue sapphire in colour, 
 with the opalescence of the adularia or precious opal. 
 By direct transmitted light, it resembled the fire stone 
 with tints of yellow, and by a less vivid and more 
 indirect light, assumed various intermingled tints of 
 orange, rose, blue, and green, possessed of a some- 
 what metallic splendour. Its geographical locality 
 appears to be limited to the seas situated to the N. and 
 W. of a line drawn from the Cape of Good Hope to the 
 southern extremity of Ceylon. 
 
 Another phenomenon observed in violent storms at 
 sea makes its appearance in a luminous patch or ring 
 upon the masts and windward yard-arms, gradually 
 
 * See Plate, fig. 7. t See Plate, fig. 6. 
 
 E 2 
 
76 
 
 mounting up the former as the storm increases in vio- 
 lence. This phenomenon, we think, has been very 
 properly ascribed by Mr. Thompson to luminous ma- 
 rine animals carried thither by the spray. This has 
 doubtless been, and may indeed be confounded with 
 an electrical phenomenon of a somewhat similar kind, 
 called St. Elmo's Light, &c. by sailors ; this last, 
 however, is usually exhibited as a radiant star or phos- 
 phoric flame playing about the very summits of the 
 masts. * The former, however, is attached to the 
 lower masts and windward rigging. 
 
 In nocturnal insects the light has by some been 
 supposed sexual : this view of the matter cannot be 
 supposed applicable to marine molluscae, since the 
 greater part have the sexes united, are destitute of 
 visual organs, and some are even acephalous, and 
 shine equally in their larva state or more perfect 
 animal form. We certainly think Mr. Thompson's 
 opinion good and happy. It is intended by Providence 
 to illuminate the ocean scene in the dark and stormy 
 night, when neither moon nor stars appear, and no 
 small tempest lies upon the mariner ; and when the 
 darkness " might be felt," the light will be most bril- 
 liant. " Coming events cast their shadows before : " 
 these become the presage of the storm, and reflect 
 such a gleam on the ship and rigging as to enable the 
 sailor to reef or furl his sails, and complete his task. 
 At all times this curious living illumination " points 
 out to the cautious mariner the lurking danger of 
 sunken rocks, shoals, and unknown coasts, by the 
 phosphorescent or snowy appearance which it gives to 
 the breakers, so as to render them visible at a consi- 
 
 * " Treatise on Atmospherical Electricity." Whittaker, Lon- 
 don, 1830. 
 
77 
 
 derable distance ; when again the diffused luminous 
 appearance of the sappharina indicator is seen, he 
 may be certain he is in soundings, and probably at no 
 great distance from some fatal spot." * 
 
 In terrestrial insects, peculiar organs seem to secrete 
 or treasure up the luminous matter, and transparent 
 spots permit it to be seen ; but in marine insects it 
 generally seems to pervade the entire structure. 
 Spallanzani by removing the luminous matter from 
 medusae, found that its phosphorescency was commu- 
 nicated to water and milk. He considered it a viscid 
 secretion ; but in our opinion it is owing either to the 
 eggs of the animals being luminous, or to parasitic 
 animalculse, which may be its food. Various have 
 been the conjectures entertained on the luminosity 
 of the ocean ; such as absorbed solar light, which 
 the friction of the waves has evolved ; electricity, too, 
 has been supposed an agent in the production of 
 this wonderful phenomenon ; also diffused phosphoric 
 matter ; while luminous animals have by other observers 
 been considered the cause of the phosphorescence of 
 the sea, and this last most rational opinion seems now 
 fully substantiated. 
 
 An anonymous writer in Mr. Loudon's Magazine of 
 Natural History f, says that the idea of the phos- 
 phorescence of the sea being the presage of a storm 
 has been long entertained among sailors, and in this 
 case they should be the best judges whether the event 
 proves it so : he continues to observe, that it may be 
 seen all the year round in the Caribbean Seas, where 
 there are no storms but in the hurricane months. 
 This may be the case there, but may not be so else- 
 where : we did not talk of the absence altogether, but 
 
 * Page 50. t Vol. i. p. 304. 
 
 E 3 
 
78 
 
 of an increase of brilliancy prior to the coming storm ; 
 and if the sea were always phosphorescent in the 
 same degree, sailors could have no basis on which to 
 form the opinion attributed to them. Besides all this, 
 the peculiarity of the luminous phenomena must be 
 attended to ; for this character will sometimes indicate 
 the introduction of exotic novelty, and the change of 
 light may reveal it : thus the luminous phenomenon 
 of the medusce is very differently characterised from 
 that of the cancer fulgens, and that of the sappharina 
 indicator from both. The cancer fulgens, though pos- 
 sessed of an extensive geographical range, is yet a 
 stranger to our coasts, though it may be driven from 
 its bearings by agitations in the ocean, and on our 
 coasts become the forerunner of storms. It may 
 be the case with others also : any increase in or mo- 
 dification of the common phosphorescency of the sea 
 in specific latitudes may well therefore be conceived 
 to be the presage of the coming tempest. 
 
 Thus may the instinct presentiment of beings, which 
 from their minuteness we despise, warn us of our 
 danger, and lift up, when commissioned by a bene- 
 ficent Providence, the veil of futurity from events that 
 are to come. 
 
 " Natura nunquam major quam in minimis." 
 
79 
 
 CHAP. VII. 
 
 TORPIDITY. GENERAL REMARKS. TORPIDITY OF 
 
 INSECTS. THE ANT. SIREN LACERTINA. MAR- 
 MOT DISTINCTIVE FEATURES OF TORPIDITY, AND 
 
 REMARKS IN ILLUSTRATION. INDUCTIVE CON- 
 CLUSIONS. 
 
 THERE are few topics less understood than the tor- 
 pidity and migration of animals, though the most 
 curious features in their physiology. The strangely 
 protracted sleep in the former case is a phenomenon 
 remarkable in itself, but remains as yet a problem : 
 
 " Sic sine vita, 
 Vivere quam suave est, sic sine morte raori." 
 
 As the following observations on the peculiar habits 
 of the tortoise, and experiments made on the tem- 
 perature of the dormouse, animals that become tor- 
 pid, may eventually aid the question, so some previous 
 remarks on the phenomena of torpidity may not be 
 out of place. In the insect world we are presented 
 with numerous instances of torpidity, which ought, 
 however, to be carefully discriminated from hibernation. 
 Toward the close of autumn, and when winter is press- 
 ing on its confines, insects are busied in looking out 
 for safe retreats, wherein they may securely pass the 
 brumal period of the year. Some of these, thus shel- 
 tered from the storm and surrounded by non-conduct- 
 ing media, enjoy a temperature unhinged by meteor- 
 E 4 
 
80 
 
 ological contingency. Others, however, become 
 torpid, lose all sense and motion, and repose in this 
 death-like state during the months of winter. Some 
 insects pass the winter in their perfect state, such as 
 the coccinellidae and curculionidae, others are changed. 
 Several of the coccinellae are solitary during summer, 
 but in winter are found aggregated : though some 
 of them are discovered out of winter quarters, even 
 after the severe weather has set in. 
 
 The following remarks on the phenomenon of insect 
 torpidity are by a most diligent and careful observer. * 
 " The first cold weather, after insects have entered 
 their winter quarters, produces effects upon them 
 similar to those which occur in the dormouse, hedge- 
 hog, and others of the larger animals subject to 
 torpor. At first a partial benumbment takes place; 
 but the insect, if touched, is still capable of moving 
 its organs. But as the cold increases, all the animal 
 functions cease. The insect breathes no longer, and 
 has no need of a supply of air; its nutritive secre- 
 tions cease, and no more is required ; the muscles lose 
 their irritability ; and it has all the external symptoms 
 of death. In this state it continues during the exist- 
 ence of great cold, but the degree of its torpidity 
 varies with the temperature of the atmosphere. The 
 recurrence of a mild day, such as we sometimes have 
 in winter, infuses a partial animation into the stiffened 
 animal : if disturbed, its limbs and antennae resume 
 their power of extension ; and even the faculty of 
 spirting out their defensive fluid is re-acquired by 
 many beetles. But, however mild the atmosphere in 
 winter, the great bulk of hybernating insects, as if 
 
 * Mr. Spence. See " An Introduction to Entomology," &c. 
 8vo. London. 1817. Page 442. vol. ii. 
 
81 
 
 conscious of the deceptive nature of their pleasurable 
 feelings, and that no food could then be procured, 
 never quit their quarters, but quietly wait for a re- 
 newal of their insensibility by a fresh accession of 
 cold." This description seems exceedingly accurate 
 and just. 
 
 It has been supposed that bees become torpid in 
 winter : this, however, is certainly a mistake ; and the 
 very phenomenon of their living in such perfectly 
 constituted societies goes far to render the opinion 
 questionable. Their very treasury of honey is a proof 
 of the same kind : why this store but for the winter of 
 the year, when not a flower unfolds and not a sweet is 
 disclosed ? " She therefore provideth her meat in the 
 summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest." We 
 know but too well, that if the hive be not defended 
 against cold, or be stocked insufficiently to support a 
 genial temperature, it will inevitably perish, though 
 we have certainly restored to the hive bees that have 
 been accidentally frozen. According to Huber, the 
 warmth of a well-tenanted hive in winter is 86 Fahren- 
 heit, and our own observations confirm his statement. 
 John Hunter found that a hive lost, from 10th of 
 November to 9th of February, more than 4 Ibs. in 
 weight. Ants become torpid, according to the same 
 author, at 27 Fahrenheit, but, by huddling together, 
 endeavour to preserve themselves from the severity of 
 cold. 
 
 Respecting the torpidity of ants, we begged the 
 favour of Mr. Denny of Leeds (whose formicaries we 
 have witnessed with pleasure) to ascertain this ques- 
 tion for us last winter, and the following is an extract 
 from his letter dated 29th of December : " The 
 weather seemed favourable for ascertaining the question 
 of the torpidity of ants, as the thermometer stood at 
 E 5 
 
82 
 
 30, and we have had some tolerable falls of snow, 
 with continued frost, for some days. My first excur- 
 sion was to Killingbeck, about three miles from Leeds, 
 where we discovered a very extensive colony of yellow 
 ants (Formica flavd) in a hilly part of the lawn sur- 
 rounding the house of Thomas Walker, Esq., which 
 appeared to penetrate full two feet below the surface. 
 Upon breaking up the ground with a spade, the earth 
 came up in solid masses and partially frozen, each of 
 which presented numerous apartments and galleries, 
 in many places quite blocked up with ants, very close 
 together, probably to collect a little warmth. When 
 first exposed to the air, they moved their antennae 
 slightly, and walked in a very feeble manner, endeavour- 
 ing to get under shelter : many which fell upon the 
 snow became very quickly motionless and perished : 
 amongst them were several larvae, in different stages of 
 growth, from half a line to two lines in length. Al- 
 though I did not dig to the bottom of the nest, I 
 brought home, I should think, at least 1500 or 2000, 
 numbers of which have since died from some cause or 
 other; perhaps the sudden change of temperature. 
 My second excursion was to Kirkstall woods, when 
 the thermometer was scarcely 30 F. I dug at my 
 old hill of formica rufa (the hill or horse ant), but 
 could not find a single specimen, so that they must be 
 at a very considerable depth : however, I was fortunate 
 enough to find a nest of the turf ant (Formica 
 ccespitum), which was beneath a patch of weeds, with 
 a slight layer of earth, upon one of the many large 
 blocks of stone lying about the woods. The outside 
 of this habitation was cased with ice ; and, when the 
 thin covering they had, and the cold stone for a found- 
 ation, is considered, these must have been at a much 
 lower temperature than the yellow ants. The colony 
 
83 
 
 was not so numerous as the former, but nevertheless a 
 tolerably good one, and containing, even at this time 
 of the year, three fine queens. These, however, were 
 not in a more torpid state than the yellow ants, but 
 moved about very leisurely. The difference in size of the 
 workers ( ? ) here is very remarkable, some being more 
 than twice the size of others, the least of which (if 
 they are the same species, for I have not yet minutely 
 examined them,) appear objects of great care and 
 anxiety to the larger ; who, as soon as they were 
 sufficiently recovered from the cold, eagerly sought 
 after them, and carried them in their mouth to a place 
 of security : the lesser seemed particularly to compre- 
 hend their meaning, for they immediately rolled them- 
 selves up, and allowed themselves to be carried without 
 the least resistance. Huber says, ants do not become 
 torpid till the thermometer sinks to 2 Reaumur 
 (27 F.) : in this case, my examinations have been too 
 early. I shall, however, again renew my search. In 
 my yellow ant, before mentioned, I noticed a curious 
 .proof of their tenacity of life. Two or three which I 
 mutilated in digging, or some way or other, so as to 
 remove the entire abdomen, were walking about very 
 composedly after three days, and even offered resist- 
 ance ; which shows the vital power must be very great, 
 as the animal is but one line and a half, or two lines 
 at most, in length." 
 
 The eggs of insects are remarkably defended against 
 cold. Spallanzani exposed the ova of the silk-worm, 
 with those of other insects, to the action of a freezing 
 mixture, 38 below zero, Fahrenheit, but they were 
 neither frozen nor had their fertility impaired. In- 
 sects may be frozen into solid masses of ice, and yet 
 revive : in Capt. Franklin's Narrative, we see this ex- 
 traordinary fact in the instance of an icy mass of 
 E 6 
 
84 
 
 mosquitoes. Lister states that he has found cater- 
 pillars so frozen, that, when dropped into a glass, they 
 clinked like stones, and yet revived. Mr. William 
 Stickney, of Holderness, exposed some of the larvae 
 of the tipula oleracea to a severe frost, which con- 
 gealed them into ice : when fractured, their whole 
 interior was found to be frozen yet several of these 
 were re-animated. Bonnet exposed the pupae of 
 papilio brassicce to a cold amounting to zero of Fahren- 
 heit : they became masses of ice, yet produced but- 
 terflies. Spallanzani made the curious observation, 
 that insects re-appear in spring at a temperature con- 
 siderably lower than that at which they retired in 
 autumn. Agreeable to what has been mentioned, it 
 is to be regretted that authors have not discriminated 
 " between the state in which animals pass the winter, 
 and their selection of a situation in which they may 
 become subject to that state." 
 
 There can be no doubt that a continued artificial 
 warmth would prevent many animals from entering 
 into a state of torpidity ; and the insect so destruc- 
 tive to the favourite of our flowers, the aphis rosce, if 
 exposed in winter to the inclemency of the season, 
 becomes torpid, while in the greenhouse it preserves 
 an active and animated being. It cannot be owing 
 to any effect of cold previously felt, that they are in- 
 duced to make preparation for their long repose : it 
 must be by a law of their being, imposed by Provi- 
 dence, " that, previously to becoming torpid, they 
 select or fabricate commodious retreats, precisely 
 adapted to the constitution and wants of different 
 species, in which they quietly wait the accession of 
 torpidity, and pass the winter." It has been very 
 properly remarked, that the fact of insects hyber- 
 nating at the close of autumn, and their not doing 
 
85 
 
 so in summer, when intense cold and frosty nights 
 occasionally prevail, is a sufficient refutation that cold 
 alone cannot be the exclusive agent. " We may say, 
 and truly, that the sensation of fatigue causes man to 
 lie down and sleep ; hut we should laugh at any one 
 who contended that this sensation forced him first to 
 make a four-post bedstead to repose upon."* 
 
 " A continuance of life," says Dr. Reeve, " under 
 the appearance of death, a loss of sensibility and of 
 voluntary motion, or suspension of those functions 
 most essential to the preservation of the animal eco- 
 nomy these are the phenomena which accompany 
 the torpid state, and they constitute one of the most 
 singular problems in the whole range of natural philo- 
 sophy." f When we contemplate animals shut up in 
 their subterrene abodes during the brumal period of 
 the year, we shall find that, in those which become 
 torpid, the temperature of the skin is reduced to a 
 low ebb, the circulation of the blood is entirely sus- 
 pended, and respiration at an end ; the torpid animal 
 has contracted its limbs into the form of a ball, and 
 is generally rolled up in some substance dry and non- 
 ducting as to temperature : such nests are formed 
 of dried leaves, grass, and the like. The dormouse 
 we always found rolled up during the season of re- 
 pose, and it had carefully wrapped the dry moss 
 round itself. Perhaps one of the most extraordinary 
 phenomena of this description is exhibited in the 
 case of the dipus canadensis, or the Canada jumping 
 mouse, which has been found twenty inches beneath 
 the surface of the ground, completely enveloped in a 
 
 * Ubi supra. 
 
 f " An Essay on the Torpidity of Animals." Svo. London 
 1809. p. 6. 
 
86 
 
 ball of clay nearly an inch thick. Now this material 
 could not permit the functions of respiration to go on : 
 though a loose and spongy texture, as of a sandy soil, 
 might be supposed to minister, though slowly, to this 
 process. When Mr. Neill's siren lacertina was pre- 
 sented to him by Dr. Munro, in 1825, it was enveloped 
 in a ball of mud or clay, and received from the marshes 
 of South Carolina. It was transferred from the 
 greenhouse in April, 1827, to the stove, where it lives 
 in a box of water, containing also moss. Here we 
 have frequently seen this curious, animal, which is 
 capable of breathing at pleasure, either by internal 
 lungs, or external branchiae (gills) : it will live seve- 
 ral hours, either in or out of the water, and is 
 therefore truly amphibious. It croaks like a frog, and 
 is fed on worms ; but seems desirous of concealment, 
 and we have always had to remove the moss to dis- 
 cover it : it is capable of enduring a long abstinence ; 
 when we last saw it, it seemed very lively Of the 
 same description precisely is the repose of the toad 
 and lizard, in the solid rock, several hundred feet 
 below the surface of the ground. In such cases, it 
 seems clear, respiration must have long ceased : for no 
 sooner is their prison-house unsealed, than that which 
 was first discovered an apparently lifeless and motion- 
 less form, begins to move, and at length exerts its 
 functions, which seemed as hermetically sealed as its 
 lapideous dwelling-place. It is quite clear, also, that 
 torpidity is preserved inviolate in this enclosure, by 
 the uniformity of the temperature in which it is 
 found from a two -fold cause, the nature of the 
 lapideous mass, and the depth below the surface 
 where it reposes. Increase of temperature, and con- 
 tact with an atmosphere acting with all its elec- 
 tric, hygrometric, and barometric vicissitudes, seem 
 
87 
 
 essentials to revival from torpidity. The toad and 
 the lizard found sealed up in rocks, and the repose 
 of seeds under ground for a long extended period, 
 are merely an extension of the same principle, dis- 
 played at regular intervals every year, in the sleep 
 of the tortoise, hedgehog, dormouse, marmot, and 
 others, or in the insect and reptile world ; or the 
 repose of vegetation in the bud. The erinaceus 
 europeuSj or hedgehog, wraps itself up most curiously 
 in a ball of hay, with which it may be supplied ; the 
 intertexture of the fibres is remarkably close, and the 
 exterior surface quite smooth. We once had a tame 
 hedgehog, and its habits a good deal resembled 
 those of our dormice: it took its food always by 
 night. 
 
 Dr. Reeve, in his " Essay on the Torpidity of Ani- 
 mals," has classed the phenomena of torpidity under 
 the following heads : 
 
 I. The temperature of hybernating animals is dimi- 
 nished. 
 
 II. The circulation of the blood becomes slower. 
 
 III. The respiration is less frequent, and sometimes 
 entirely suspended. 
 
 IV. The action of the stomach and digestive organs 
 is suspended. 
 
 V. The irritability and sensibility of the muscular 
 and nervous powers are diminished and suspended. 
 
 On each of these a few remarks will be made, to 
 preserve a somewhat arranged form : the causes of tor- 
 pidity may also be glanced at, and general deductions 
 made. 
 
 I. Mr. Hunter ascertained that the temperature of 
 a hedgehog, at the diaphragm, in summer, was 97 
 Fahrenheit, when the thermometer in the shade was 
 78; when the air was 44, the animal became torpid, 
 
88 
 
 and its temperature 48.5 F. ; and the air being 26, 
 the temperature of the animal was 30 F. Pallas, in 
 the case of a torpid hedgehog, found the skin under 
 the belly 39.5, and Spallanzani limits the decrease of 
 temperature during torpidity to 36 F. The tempera- 
 ture of our dormice was 102 to 104 F. ; Dr. Reeve 
 found it 101. The animal in a semi-torpid state, in 
 our experiments, was at one time 62.5, and at an- 
 other 69 F. Dr. Reeve found the skin of the dor- 
 mouse, when rolled up and torpid in winter, 43, 39, 
 and even 35, on the exterior surface, but in the 
 stomach 67 and 73 an approximation to our re- 
 sults : marmots have a temperature amounting to 101 
 and 102, and this sinks in the torpid state even as 
 low as 43. The arctomys marmota, the marmot of 
 the Alps, is that best known. Three new species, 
 however, from the arctic regions, are described in 
 the Linnean Transactions. * The arctomys hoodii, is a 
 beautiful little animal, and received its specific name 
 after that of Lieut. Hood, one of the party under the 
 command of Capt. Franklin, in the overland expedi- 
 tion. The marmots of North America feed on vege- 
 tables, fruits, and roots ; live under ground, and in the 
 cavities of trees ; and, like the alpine marmot, are said 
 to be torpid during winter. For a description of the 
 alpine marmot, we must refer to our little work on 
 Switzerland f, p. 25, c. It would appear that, though 
 the exterior surface of the animal be of a similar tem- 
 perature with the ambient medium, the internal tem- 
 perature is higher. Spallanzani found the wood-mouse 
 (which in Italy becomes torpid in November) in a 
 torpid state, when the air in its cage was 43, and the 
 
 * Vol. xiii. Lond. 1822. 4to. p. 579, &c. 
 
 f " A Glance at some of the Beauties and Sublimities of 
 Switzerland." London. 1829. 
 
temperature of the skin 45. It seems, therefore, 
 clearly demonstrated, that in torpidity the tempera- 
 ture of the body is reduced. 
 
 II. In the case of the mus cricetus, when active and 
 irritated, its heart beats 150 strokes in a minute ; 
 while in a torpid state the number of pulsations are 
 reduced to 15. In the bat, the number of beats may 
 be stated at 100, but when torpid these amount to 
 only about 14-. Dormice have a very rapid pulse; but 
 when semi-torpid, the number of beats may be con- 
 sidered about 31. The action of the heart ultimately 
 becomes imperceptible, and before this period the 
 pulsations do not exceed 16. It is not probable, that 
 though the circulation be reduced to its lowest pulse, 
 and the diastole and systole become inappreciable, that 
 the blood ever congeals, though it may become more 
 dense. Spallanzani informs us, that if the abstracted 
 blood of the marmot be subjected to a temperature 
 even higher than that of the lungs of the animal, it is 
 frozen, but is never found congealed in their torpid state, 
 even after exposure to a cold several degrees below 
 the zero of Fahrenheit : so true is it, that " in the 
 blood is the life thereof." These facts show plainly, 
 that though the circulation be in a state of torpidity, 
 and reduced to its minimum, that agency, superadded 
 to their material organisation, which we call the prin- 
 ciple of life, preserves the circulating fluid in a liquid 
 form. 
 
 III. By the experiments of Spallanzani, torpid bats 
 lived seven minutes in the exhausted receiver of an 
 air-pump, in which another bat perished in less than 
 one half this period. Some animals will support such 
 an attenuated medium for a long period : we found 
 this in experiments, with the grasshopper: the respir- 
 ation seemed hurried and laborious, but it was not in- 
 
90 
 
 jured after a long period of imprisonment. Spallan- 
 zani confined torpid marmots for four hours, in media 
 of carbonic acid gas and hydrogene, without injury, 
 while they perished when awakened in the gases. 
 The same philosopher found no eudiometric change on 
 several cubic inches of atmospheric air, ^after torpid 
 bats and marmots had remained in it three hours. In 
 1795, Spallanzani found that torpid dormice, after 
 being exposed to a temperature below freezing, re- 
 mained uninjured in media of carbonic acid gas and 
 azote over mercury ; the internal surface of the glass 
 was not dimmed by any moisture, consequently breath- 
 ing must have been suspended. Sir J. E. Smith, Pre- 
 sident of the Linnean Society, has found that the 
 respiration of a tortoise in winter was always slower 
 than in summer. It may therefore be fairly concluded, 
 that, in torpidity, respiration ceases. 
 
 IV, Mr. Hunter introduced food into the stomachs 
 of lizards before torpidity was determined, and, on 
 being subsequently examined during this period, it 
 was found unaltered. In the case of the dormouse, 
 marmot, and others, no food is taken immediately 
 before torpidity commences, and at the close of tor- 
 pidity, in spring, the stomach and intestinal canal are 
 found empty. We find a similar fact in respect to 
 the tortoise, which does not take any sustenance for 
 some time before it becomes torpid, and rejects food 
 also for a short period after it recovers from its lethar- 
 gic state. Martial says, of the dormouse, 
 
 " Tota mihi dormitur hyems, et pinguior illo 
 Tempore sum, quo me nil nisi somnus alit." 
 
 Now, though the dormouse does not become fatter 
 during torpidity, it may be considered as in good con- 
 
SI 
 
 dition, though, at its close, it has lost somewhat of its 
 obesity. It is certain that the alpine hunters of 
 Switzerland find the marmots fat in their holes ; and 
 it is also known that, some time after they leave them, 
 they are often seen emaciated. Spallanzani is of 
 opinion that dormice lose weight by torpidity, and Mr. 
 Cornish estimates this at from five to seven grains 
 during the torpidity of a fortnight. We may there- 
 fore infer safely, that digestion has ceased entirely, 
 but that there still may be a slow expenditure or 
 waste, perhaps cuticular, in the shape of insensible 
 perspiration. 
 
 V. Animals in a torpid state seem insensible to ex- 
 ternal agencies : the dormouse may be tossed up as a 
 ball, or thrown to a distance, without any change of 
 state. Volta and Spallanzani could not rouse the 
 marmot from its torpidity by the electric spark, and 
 it was only temporarily disturbed by the shock from a 
 Leyden jar, Wounds have been inflicted, and their 
 limbs broken, yet torpidity remained unhinged, as in 
 bats and other animals. External stimuli, therefore, 
 do not affect the torpidity of animals : heat and air, 
 conjoined no doubt with electricity, are the only 
 agencies which rouse them from this death-like 
 lethargy. 
 
 " The tribe of quadrupeds," says Dr. Reeve, " have 
 the habit of rolling themselves into the form of a ball 
 during ordinary sleep ; and they invariably assume the 
 same attitude when in the torpid state, so as to ex- 
 pose the least possible surface to the action of cold : 
 the limbs are all folded into the hollow made by the 
 bending of the body : the clavicles and the sternum 
 are pressed against the fore part of the neck, so as to 
 interrupt the flow of blood which supplies the head, 
 and to compress the trachea ; the abdominal viscera 
 
92 
 
 and the hinder limbs are pushed against the diaphragm, 
 so as to interrupt its motions, and to impede the flow 
 of blood through the large vessels which penetrate 
 it, and the longitudinal extension of the cavity of 
 the thorax is entirely obstructed." Such is the phe- 
 nomenon of the animal cradled in torpidity. Con- 
 trary to the opinion sustained by Mr. Gough and 
 others, animals prepare for the singular state from in- 
 stinctive feeling or presentiment, just as the silk- worm 
 prepares its cocoon, where, wrapped up like a mum- 
 my in its sycamore coffin, it awaits its remarkable 
 transformation. 
 
 We rest secure in this opinion, and acknowledge it 
 as additional evidence of that provident care which 
 excites our wonder and delight. A peculiar organ- 
 isation is no doubt superadded by creative wisdom 
 for this purpose ; and Sir Anthony Carlisle informs us, 
 that animals of the class mammalia, which become 
 torpid in winter, have at all times a power of subsist- 
 ing under a confined respiration, which would destroy 
 other animals not possessed of this singular habit : he 
 also discovered in them a peculiar structure of the 
 heart and its principal veins. We may safely, there- 
 fore, draw from these premises the following conclu- 
 sions, and they certainly seem inductive and warranted 
 inferences : 
 
 I. Some animals as naturally pass, by instinctive 
 feeling, into the state of torpidity, as the swallow and 
 other birds migrate, till Providence in due time re- 
 stores to them their natural and necessary food. It 
 is not doubted that there is a peculiar organisation 
 fitted for these extraordinary functions, and subservient 
 to this peculiar phenomenon. Night is the season for 
 common and temporary repose the winter of the 
 year for this extraordinary sleep. 
 
93 
 
 II. In torpidity, the functions of respiration are 
 completely suspended and at rest ; but as some torpid 
 animals seem to pass into this state fat, and emerge 
 " lean and ill favoured," it may be inferred that a slow 
 and peculiar substitutary function is exerted. Whe- 
 ther this fat is absorbed into muscle, or evolved in 
 another form, through the medium of some slow pro- 
 cess, has not been yet determined. 
 
 III. From the fact of torpid animals, as the hedge- 
 hog, dormouse, &c. wrapping themselves up into a ball 
 with dried leaves, hay, or other non-conducting sub- 
 stance, we may infer that moisture or damp, as well as 
 a medium very low in temperature, would be injurious 
 or fatal : an insulation, and a defence against these, 
 is thus provided. Sudden warmth might also, from 
 its abrupt transition, cause this torpidity to merge in 
 death ; as an elevated temperature, when incautiously 
 applied, destroys the frozen limb. 
 
 IV. The predisposing causes of torpidity are cold, 
 and want of food or proper nourishment ; and torpid 
 animals instinctively provide against their advent. 
 Abstraction of liquid may also be subservient to this 
 phenomenon ; and to these may be added the absence 
 of the stimulus of light and stagnation of air, or its 
 slow currency and intercepted circulation. 
 
 V. Torpidity may be arrested or suspended by a 
 proper temperature, and generous diet or nourish- 
 ment, conjoined with free ventilation or currency of 
 air. It is not improbable, however, that the character 
 and habit of the animal may be thus changed, and 
 perhaps the natural term of its life abridged. We 
 cannot doubt that a periodic electric change is that 
 which summons them to awake from this wonderfully 
 protracted sleep. 
 
CHAP. VIII. 
 
 THE TESTUDO GR1ECA, OR COMMON TORTOISE. AN 
 
 ACCOUNT OF THAT IN THE PALACE GARDEN AT 
 
 PETERBOROUGH. ADDITIONAL PARTICULARS. 
 
 THE DORMOUSE. 
 
 THE testudo grceca, or common tortoise, may be occa- 
 sionally met with in gardens in this country. Mr. Neill 
 has had several at a time, and they move about either 
 in his greenhouse or garden. One of several tortoises 
 laid three eggs in the Rev. Dr. Patterson's garden at 
 Montrose, who gave us one of them : it was spherical, 
 the shell apparently thick, and altogether resembled 
 a ball of marble. The size to which the tortoise 
 sometimes attains is immense : we remember, some 
 years ago, to have seen one, then semi-torpid, ex- 
 hibited near Exeter 'Change, London, which weighed, 
 if we recollect aright, several hundred weight. Its 
 shell was proportionally thick, and its other dimensions 
 bore a corresponding ratio : it was stated to be about 
 800 years old, but this must be considered fabulous ; 
 its size, indeed, and enormous thickness of the shell, 
 were presumptive evidence that its age may have been 
 of an antediluvian character ; but no chronicles en- 
 rolled its years. In the library of the palace at 
 Lambeth is the shell of a land tortoise, brought there 
 about the year 1623 : it lived until 1730, and was killed 
 by the inclemency of the weather during frost, in conse- 
 quence of the carelessness of a labourer in the 
 garden, who, for a trifling wager, dug it up from its 
 winter retreat, and neglected to replace it. Another 
 
95 
 
 tortoise was placed in the garden of the episcopal 
 palace at Fulham, by Bishop Laud, when bishop of 
 that see, in 1628 : this appears to have died a natural 
 death in 1753. It is not known what were their 
 several ages when placed in these gardens. That of 
 which we are about to give an account, we saw in 
 the palace garden at Peterborough, adjoining the 
 Cathedral, in the summer of 1813. We were in- 
 formed that its introduction into the garden was re- 
 gistered in a document in the archives of the cathedral, 
 and its sustenance and abode therein provided for ; but 
 this seems to be incorrect. Its shell was perforated, 
 in order to limit its range among the strawberry 
 borders, of which fruit it was fond. The animal had 
 its antipathies and predilections : thus it would eat en- 
 dive, green pease, and even the leek, while it rejected 
 asparagus, parsley, and spinage. In the early part 
 of the season, its favourite pabulum seemed to be the 
 flowers of the dandelion (leontodon taraxacum), of 
 which it would devour twenty at a meal ; and lettuce 
 (lactuca sativa), of the latter a good sized one at a 
 time ; but if placed between lettuce and the flowers of 
 the dandelion, it would forsake the former for the 
 latter. It was also partial to the pulp of an orange, 
 which it sucked greedily. 
 
 About the latter end of June, it looked out for 
 fruit, when its former choice was forsaken: it ate 
 currants, raspberries, pears, apples, peaches, and necta- 
 rines, the riper the better, but would not taste cherries. 
 Of fruits, however, the strawberry and gooseberry 
 were the most esteemed : it made great havoc among 
 the strawberry borders, and would take a pint of 
 gooseberries at intervals. The gardener told us it 
 knew him well : his was the hand that generally fed it ; 
 and the animal would watch him attentively at the 
 
96 
 
 gooseberry bush, where it was sure to take its station 
 while he plucked the fruit. We could not get it to 
 take the root of the dandelion, nor indeed any root 
 offered, as that of the carrot or turnip : animal food 
 was discarded ; nor would it taste any liquid, at least 
 neither milk nor water ; and when a leaf was moist, it 
 would shake it to expel the adhering wet. 
 
 This animal moved with apparent ease, though 
 pressed by a weight of 18 stones ; it weighed 
 IS^lbs. In cloudy weather, it would scoop out a 
 cavity, generally in a southern exposure, where it 
 reposed, torpid and inactive, until the genial influence 
 of the sun roused it from its slumber : when in this 
 state the eyes were closed, and the head and neck a 
 little contracted, though not entirely drawn within the 
 shell. Its sense of smelling was so acute, that it was 
 roused from its lethargy if any person approached 
 even at a distance of twelve feet. 
 
 About the beginning of October (or latter end of 
 September) it began to immure itself, and had for 
 that purpose, for many years, selected a particular 
 angle of the garden : it entered in an inclined plane, 
 excavating the earth in the manner of the mole : the 
 depth to which it penetrated varied with the character 
 of the approaching season, being from one to two feet, 
 according as the following winter was mild or severe. 
 It may be added, that for nearly a month prior to this 
 entry into its dormitory, it refused all sustenance 
 whatever.* The animal emerged about the end of 
 April, and remained for at least a fortnight before it 
 ventured on taking any species of food : its skin was 
 
 * Dr. Patterson informed us that his tortoise used to sleep 
 away the winter in some corner in the children's nursery. There 
 must, therefore, be something more than temperature connected 
 with torpidity. 
 
97 
 
 not perceptibly cold*; and its respiration, entirely 
 effected through the nostrils, was languid. We visited 
 the animal, for the last time, on the 9th of June, 1813, 
 during a thunder storm : it then lay under the shelter 
 of a cauliflower, and apparently torpid. 
 
 It is very singular that the lettuce and dandelion 
 should find such predilections with the tortoise : the 
 lactescent juice of the former, from the opium it con- 
 tains, is powerfully narcotic ; and we have found that 
 the extract, taraxici, applied to the sciatic nerves of a 
 frog, acted in a. similar manner to opium, by suspend- 
 ing voltaic excitement. It is also remarkable that 
 these should have been rejected when the fruit 
 season commenced, and the strawberry and goose- 
 berry preferred ; its antipathy to cherries is equally 
 curious, and not less so its aversion to fluids. On the 
 whole, that narcotics or sedatives should take pre- 
 cedence of all other kinds of food in the former part 
 of the season, and those that act a different part 
 in the animal economy toward the autumn, is cer- 
 tainly surprising. 
 
 This tortoise, so long an inmate in the palace garden 
 at Peterborough, died on the second of April last. 
 Having taken considerable interest in the fate of this 
 remarkable animal, we wrote to the Lord Bishop of 
 Peterborough, requesting the favour of a few particu- 
 lars in its history, and had the gratification to receive 
 from His Lordship the following interesting communi- 
 cation, which we feel much pleasure in adding to cur 
 personal observations, while we acknowledge the 
 prompt courtesy with which it was made: "The 
 
 * Dr. Davy took the temperature of the testudo geometrica at 
 Cape Town, in May: air 61 ; the animal 62.5. At Columbo, 
 in Ceylon, on the 3d of March, the temperature of a larger spe- 
 cimen was 87, while the air was 80. 
 F 
 
98 
 
 tortoise, a native of the south of Europe, was in the pos- 
 session of a respectable individual (the then chapter 
 clerk) of this city, in the year 1746, when it was re- 
 puted to be between fifty and sixty years old. It was 
 presented by him to the Bishop of Peterborough, and 
 has probably been about eighty years an inhabitant of 
 the palace gardens, where the present bishop erected 
 a shed for its better protection in the winter. It 
 prepared with the first symptoms of cold weather to 
 bury itself, and was then removed to the shed : it re- 
 mained torpid till the return of settled spring weather, 
 when, as soon as it rose to the surface of the ground, 
 it was taken out, and left at liberty in the kitchen 
 garden ; when, besides a panful of bread and milk 
 prepared for it every morning, it fed upon lettuce, 
 dandelion, and such fruits as were within its reach 
 but of lettuce and dandelion it was particularly fond. 
 It was supposed to know the voice of the gardener, 
 who usually brought its bread and milk. It was very 
 susceptible of changes in the atmosphere, and showed 
 its enjoyment of heat by the comparative agility of 
 its movements and its increased readiness for food. 
 For many years it had the use of only one eye, the 
 lid of the other being closed in consequence of a blow 
 from a spade whilst under ground. This eye was re- 
 stored during the summer of 1826, and was apparently 
 as perfect as the other till the time of its death. As 
 soon as it showed itself in the warm weather of March, 
 it was evident that it was in a very sickly state ; the head 
 was unnaturally forced forward and upward, and though 
 it took food, it did not masticate or swallow it. In a 
 few days it died. Upon opening it, a great quantity 
 of mucus was found in the resophagus. It was a fe- 
 male. The muscles by which it was enabled to force 
 its head forward were remarkably strong. Its strength 
 
99 
 
 when alive was such that it bore the weight of a man. 
 In 1826 it weighed 91bs." 
 
 In reference to the tortoise we find similar attesta- 
 tions in " The Natural History of Selborne :" "it dis- 
 covers as much solicitude about rain as a lady dressed 
 in all her best attire, shuffling away on the first sprink- 
 lings, and running its head up into a corner : it is an 
 excellent weather-glass ; for as sure as it walks elate and 
 on tip-toe, feeding with great earnestness in a morn- 
 ing, so sure will it rain before night." Our author thus 
 verifies what we ascertained from personal observation 
 and experiment: " When it first appears in spring it 
 discovers very little inclination towards food, but in 
 the height of summer grows voracious, and then, as the 
 summer declines its appetite declines, so that for the 
 last six weeks in autumn it hardly eats at all. Milky 
 plants, such as lettuces, dandelions, sow-thistles, are its 
 favourite dish." 
 
 As a proper sequel, we may add a few remarks on 
 the dormouse. 
 
 In the beginning of 1824, we received two dormice 
 from a friend in Derbyshire, and commenced a series 
 of experiments on the temperature developed by the 
 skin. One of these was accidentally lost, having 
 escaped from confinement ; and we were shortly after- 
 wards necessitated, from various avocations, to resign 
 the prosecution of our experiments with the other. 
 The following is a note of the temperature observed 
 under different circumstances : 
 
 Slst January, 1824, at 25 minutes past 7 P.M., air of the 
 room, 48 Fahrenheit ; temperature of the dormice under the 
 breast, 103 F. We soon after lost one of the prisoners. On the 
 14th February, at half-past 8 P.M., air, 51 F. ; temperature under 
 the breast, 62. 5. The animal semi-torpid. 
 
 F 2 
 
100 
 
 .ir. Under breast 
 
 6 104 
 
 Semi-torpid. 
 
 
 Air. Under breast 
 
 Feb. 15. at 1 h. 15 min. p 
 
 M 46 104 
 
 8 h. 30 min. p 
 
 M 47. 5 69 
 
 S h. 30 min. p 
 
 M 52 ......102. 5 
 
 ... 19. ... 2 h. P 
 
 M 56 99 
 
 ... 21. ...10 h. 30 min. p 
 
 M 54.5 102 
 
 ... 22. ...12 h. 30 min. p 
 
 M 57 97 
 
 On the 14th and 15th of February, the dormice were 
 roused from their apparent death by heat, cautiously ap- 
 plied. The box which contained them had a partition : 
 one compartment was supplied with fresh moss, we 1 ! 
 dried, in which the animals reposed during day, having 
 formed for themselves a somewhat elliptical nest. Two 
 openings, with slides, conducted into their outer court, 
 where the dormice had their food prepared for them, 
 consisting of wheaien bread (sometimes softened with 
 water) and a basin of milk : great attention and care 
 were bestowed on them, and the food daily supplied. 
 The sliding pannels were shut when these compart- 
 ments were cleaned, it being easy to expel them from 
 the one to the other, and thus prevent* their escape. 
 Though their cage was frequently in darkness during 
 the day, the night season was the exclusive period in 
 which they took food : one of them adopted a singular 
 expedient when the liquid was too low in the basin, 
 it dipped in its brushy tail, and in this way transferred 
 the milk to its mouth. When dormice are torpid, 
 they are rolled up like a ball, and may be tossed in- 
 to the air without discovering any motion or change. 
 By keeping them in a proper temperature during the 
 winter, their brumal torpidity may be entirely pre- 
 vented ; but they will not outlive the following year. 
 They are fat and in good condition when they enter 
 into torpidity, but issue from this state miserably 
 lean. Our dormice were extremely timid, yet they 
 may be so tamed as to run about the table and lick 
 
101 
 
 the hand that feeds them. As to their sense of hear- 
 ing, we found them peculiarly affected by the higher 
 notes, and their eyes were, like those of albinos, injured 
 by strong light and exposure to day. 
 
 F 3 
 
102 
 
 CHAP. IX. 
 
 MIGRATION OF BIRDS. SWALLOW SUBMERSION AND 
 
 MIGRATION. THE CUCKOO. THE STORK. THE 
 
 NIGHTINGALE. STARLINGS ON THEIR RETURN 
 FROM MIGRATION. MIGRATION IN THE INSECT 
 WORLD BUTTERFLIES. THE LOCUST. CONTEM- 
 PORANEOUS PHENOMENA. INSTINCT. CONCLU- 
 SION. 
 
 THE migration of some birds is a very curious part 
 of their natural history, and it is an essential one : 
 the fact is indubitable, but the solution of the 
 problem, in reference to the predisposing cause,, is not 
 
 " Who bids the stork, Columbus-like, explore 
 
 Heavens not its own, and worlds unknown before ? 
 
 Who calls the council, states the certain day, 
 
 Who forms the phalanx, and who points the way ? " 
 
 As is the case with torpid animals which cannot 
 migrate, migratory birds retire before the severe season 
 has chased the insect race into their cocoons and 
 chrysalis forms. They take their departure while 
 warmth yet animates the atmosphere, and insects 
 dance in the sunbeam or flutter over the mantled pool, 
 the excitement, therefore, must proceed from 
 some subtile principle, and yet the change of clime 
 must be linked with the question of a supply of 
 food. " Not one of these is forgotten," before HIM 
 without whose permission " not a sparrow falls." 
 Such a presentiment, therefore, was essentially neces- 
 
103 
 
 sary to fulfil the end of their being; this instinct know- 
 ledge imparted by a mysterious power was therefore 
 superadded, and thus gifted by Providence, 
 
 '* They reason not contemptibly." 
 
 On this subject the most absurd notions have long 
 prevailed, and submersion and torpidity were substi- 
 tuted for migration. Pliny supposed that swallows 
 retired to the recesses of mountains, and reposed 
 in winter without feathers a period when of all 
 others they most required their plumage. The west 
 wind, as that contemporaneous with the arrival of the 
 swallow, was called " Chelidonian ; " and three islands 
 over against Mount Taurus received their names in 
 conformity with their being the supposed brumal 
 retreat of the swallow. 
 
 The physiology of birds is certainly utterly repug- 
 nant to the idea of the submersion of swallows, and 
 sets all analogy at defiance : the leptura micans y 
 however, is an apparently curious exception ; for if 
 seems to descend by the stem of some rush or other 
 aquatic plant to deposit its ova in the mud of the 
 pool. Our swallows have been seen to congregate, 
 take their departure, and cross the Mediterranean 
 towards the coast of Africa ; and at that season of the 
 year when they are no longer seen in Britain, they 
 have been observed in Senegal and the adjoining 
 regions : after the autumnal departure, Adanson 
 found them wintering there. The fabulous idea, how- 
 ever, of their submersion, was entertained by Klein, 
 Daines Barrington, and Linnaeus, though on the most 
 insufficient grounds. Linnaeus even described their 
 previous solemn assemblage on reeds or on the banks 
 of rivers, and warbling their swallow song before they 
 F 4 
 
104 
 
 descended into their watery sepulchre. Swallows are 
 known to appear earlier and depart later in southern 
 than in northern Britain. Mr. Forster observes, " it is 
 hardly to be supposed that they would assemble to- 
 gether merely to hide themselves." * Adanson states, 
 that on the 6th of October, on the African coast, four 
 swallows alighted on the rigging now the hirundo 
 rustica, or common house-swallow, leaves Britain 
 about this time; and the same naturalist tells us, that 
 these birds do not build nests there as in Europe, but 
 roost every night on the ^lands on the shore, nor do 
 they appear in Senegal until after their disappearance 
 in Europe. Sir Charles Wager informs us that in one 
 of his voyages homeward an immense flock of swallows 
 settled on the ship. Every rope was covered with 
 them, and they clung to one another like a swarm of 
 bees. " We find," says Sir William Jardine, " tor- 
 pidity occurring among animals, fishes, the amphibiae, 
 and reptiles, and among insects, but we have never 
 found any authenticated instance of this provision 
 among birds. Their frames are adapted to a more 
 extensive locomotive power." The annual migration 
 of birds seems to be more general in North America 
 than in Europe from the greater inclemency. 
 
 The calendar of return in the stork, or the cuckoo, 
 or swallow, is not founded either in solar or sidereal 
 time, its date seems based in meteorology : sometimes 
 the appearance is earlier and sometimes later in the 
 season; but " intelligent of seasons," this period always 
 harmonizes with a certain fixity in the weather it is 
 a point on which no mistake is made ; they " know 
 their appointed time." What vision in foreign lands 
 has communicated to our aerial voyageurs that the va- 
 
 " Brumal Retreat of the Swallow," London, 1813, p. 17. 
 
105 
 
 riable vicissitudes of our high latitudes have settled 
 into spring ? None of these are lulled to forgetfulness 
 by solar animation and an evergreen livery. They 
 require no alarum to awaken their vigilance and sum- 
 mon them to depart. " They know their appointed 
 time." In vain does the perennial hum of insect life 
 tempt the swallow to stay ; she is deaf to the siren 
 charmer, and hastens to occupy her place in the ca- 
 lendar of her destinies. The direction of her flight 
 is not the least wonderful in the history of migration. 
 Instinct wisdom accomplishes what reason and expe- 
 rience illuminated by science achieved after the lapse 
 of ages. The swallow has no compass for her guide ; 
 and the stars are useless, since another hemisphere is 
 there revealed. The carrier pigeon flies at the rate 
 of 50 miles an hour, but the velocity of the swift 
 has been calculated at 250 miles an hour ; and Mr. 
 Montagu in his Ornithological Dictionary says that 
 the swift (hirundo opus) " can and does suspend 
 itself in the air for fourteen or fifteen hours together;" 
 and really, except on the wing, we know not a more 
 helpless creature. At this calculation it would in fifteen 
 hours fly over a space of 3750 miles, and might there- 
 fore leave England at 6 A. M., ere insect life were well 
 awake, and at noon be fluttering round the palm trees 
 of Africa. We have seen the swallow (hirundo rus- 
 tica) in Italy, after their disappearance in this country, 
 and two once settled on the rigging of our vessel in the 
 Mediterranean. They have been seen at sea in numbers; 
 and the reason why they have not been more frequently 
 observed is, that, whether in their exit or return, 
 night is in all probability the period of migration ; and 
 the loftiness of their flight, where no local causes 
 concur to disturb their progress, would render them 
 invisible to the eye of the spectator. "On a calm 
 F 5 
 
106 
 
 bright evening in November, I have heard high in the 
 air the redwing and the fieldfare on progress to a 
 destined settlement, manifested by the signal notes of 
 some leading birds to their scattered followers. These 
 conductors of their flocks are certainly birds acquainted 
 with the country over which they travel, their settle- 
 ments here being no promiscuous dispersion." * 
 
 In Jenne, we are told by Rene Caillie, in his Travels 
 to Timbuctoo, there is a mosque built of earth, sur- 
 rounded by two massive but not high towers, rudely 
 constructed though not large. It is abandoned to 
 thousands of swallows, which build their nests in it. 
 In all probability, this is a very different species of 
 swallow from the common swallow (hirundo rustica), 
 which builds its nest in Britain. It is now nearly a 
 century since the swallow has made its appearance so 
 early in Britain as the present season. In 1736, they 
 were seen on the 30th of March, on which day they 
 were also observed in the present year. In consequence 
 of the heavy fall of snow, they entirely disappeared on 
 the 1st and 2d of April, and we did not observe any 
 till the 17th of that month, when we noticed a good 
 many in the vicinity of Hereford. 
 
 " The swallow," says Sir H. Davy, " is the joyous 
 prophet of the year, and the harbinger of the best 
 season ; he lives a life of enjoyment amongst the 
 loveliest forms of nature ; winter is unknown to him, 
 and he leaves the green meadows of England in 
 autumn, for the myrtle and orange groves of Italy, and 
 the palms of Africa. Even the beings selected for his 
 prey are poetical, beautiful, and transient. His instinct, 
 which gives him his appointed seasons, and which 
 teaches him always when and where to move, may be 
 
 * " Journal of a Naturalist," 1829, p. 211. 
 
107 
 
 regarded as flowing from a divine source ; and he be- 
 longs to the oracles of nature, which speak the awful 
 and intelligible language of a present Deity." * 
 
 There is, perhaps, no bird whose note is more wel- 
 come than that of the cuckoo : it is the voice of spring, 
 and in its intonation is heard the promise of the year. 
 After its visit to savage tribes and an exotic clime, the 
 cuckoo returns to Britain as its home, where its offspring 
 may be sheltered and reared in safety. Though the phe- 
 nomenon may be rare, we remember to have heard its 
 note at midnight between Douglas and Castleton in the 
 Isle of Man ; it is now some years ago ; the moon was 
 bright, and " cuckoo " was often repeated from trees in 
 the distance. Among migratory birds we know none 
 more interesting than the stork, and its history is 
 full of almost romantic detail ; it is linked with the 
 heron and the crane, though itself alone. The heron 
 is a very graceful creature, and some of its attitudes 
 extremely picturesque : when perched on the edge of 
 some antique marble fountain, there is scarcely a happier 
 image of contemplation. Its form is not only graceful, 
 but it is as still and motionless, as if life had been 
 suddenly congealed in its veins at the moment its 
 finest attitude had been assumed, and the charm her- 
 metically preserved ; we have watched this unbroken 
 stillness for hours together. The heron seems, too, a 
 docile and a curious bird; we have seen one near 
 Bridgnorth, whose manreuvres were quite amusing. 
 When the drawing-room window was opened (on a level 
 with the garden), it would stalk in with some share 
 of majesty, and after a walk up and down the room, 
 would march boldly up to the fireplace in cold weather, 
 and expanding its wings, first present one side and 
 
 * Salmonia," p. 79. 
 F 6 
 
108 
 
 afterwards the other, alternately, then turn round and 
 warm the plumage of the back ; there was, in fact, art 
 and method in its whirls and semicurves, which never 
 failed to interest attention in the exhibition. 
 
 Mr. Davies has supplied us with the following 
 account of " the adjutant, " linked by natural affinities 
 with this family. " That singular species of the stork, 
 called by our soldiers, on account of its stately and 
 military march, the adjutant, is exceedingly common in 
 Hindustan, particularly in the cantonments, to which 
 places it is irresistibly incited by the great quantities 
 of animal food used by the Europeans. Fort William, 
 Calcutta, may be said to be infested by it ; though 
 the annoyance occasioned by its voraciousness is more 
 than compensated by its predilection for serpents and 
 other venomous reptiles, whose increase, if not retarded 
 by the adjutant, would be a more serious evil. Scarcely 
 can a dinner pass from the culinary regions to the 
 higher apartments without being pounced on by these 
 voracious birds ; and often I have seen families de- 
 spoiled in a moment of their expected aliment by these 
 unceremonious and unwelcome guests : the size of the 
 joint presents no difficulty to the seizure. I have been 
 told that the capture and deglutition of a leg of mutton in 
 this manner is a very common occurrence ; and though 
 I cannot say I have witnessed this rapid manoeuvre 
 performed, yet from my remembrance of the size of 
 joints of Indian mutton, and the rapaciousness of these 
 birds, I cannot doubt the truth of what I have heard. 
 They so completely besiege a room in which there are 
 any symptoms of good cheer, that joints or morsels 
 thrown from the apartments (generally elevated above 
 the ground-floor) are caught, long ere they fall to the 
 earth, by some fortunate competitor, whose dexterity 
 and generalship for a moment brings on him the 
 
109 
 
 clamorous indignation of his companions, who follow 
 him, struggling to retain his prey, with loud complaints 
 and vigorous attempts to make him disgorge. The 
 common soldiers, who are fond of deriving amusement 
 from the epicurean propensities of this bird, have a 
 very successful way of making him a prisoner on dis- 
 cretion for some time. They append a piece of flesh 
 to the end of a rope, and throw it in the air ; the flesh 
 is swallowed without scruple, and the poor bird, un- 
 willing to disgorge his food, though the price at which 
 he purchases it is his liberty, is thus compelled to walk 
 in procession, and swell the triumph of his conqueror. 
 The ludicrous appearance of the adjutant in this situ- 
 ation is scarcely imaginable. His walk, at all times 
 staid and majestic, is now peculiarly, solemn : he looks 
 like a knight-errant of ancient chivalry, unarmed and 
 in chains, deprived of every thing but his sturdy pride, 
 which even now permits him to defy his conquerors 
 with contemptuous gaze. This singular bird sleeps 
 amidst shallow waters, to which it retires to be safe 
 from the attacks of beasts of prey : as soon, however, 
 as the dawn promises the joyful return of the military 
 breakfast, they issue from their aquatic dormitories, 
 and with clamorous importunity wing their way to 
 the barracks, where they stalk in solemn grandeur till 
 the offals are distributed, or they succeed in their pre- 
 datory attempts on some viand insufficiently protected 
 against their marauding practices." 
 
 The white stork (ciconia alba of Ray) is the most 
 interesting of the species, and its aptitude as a selected 
 point in sacred writ will be found in its natural history. 
 Its biography comprises a history of usefulness and 
 affection. When its food, such as insects and reptiles, 
 disappears, and the brumal months draw on apace, the 
 subject of our remarks seek a more temperate clime, 
 
110 
 
 and returns northward in the genial period of spring. 
 It passes its winter in North Africa, or Egypt, chiefly 
 in the latter ; from whence it migrates during summer 
 to France, Holland, Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, 
 and Poland, rarely to England or to Russia. Like the 
 heron, it is a very picturesque creature : poised on one 
 leg, it is the very death-like attitude of breathless re- 
 pose, and the image of graceful thought. Its step is 
 slow, solemn, and measured, moving in conscious 
 elegance. These birds leave Europe about the be- 
 ginning of August, and the " note of preparation " 
 occupies several weeks' consideration in deliberate and 
 legislative assemblage ; the period arrived, the collec- 
 tive body, to the number of many hundreds, mount at 
 once into the air, and are soon lost to observation in 
 the majesty of their flight. In the months of March 
 and April they return to Europe in smaller bands. 
 
 These interesting creatures have ever been regarded 
 with kindly and welcome feelings ; and the trust they 
 repose in man, while it merits his protection, seems not 
 misplaced. Thus the stork, in some towns of Holland, 
 may be seen walking at his ease, and undismayed at 
 the presence of man, along the busy streets of a 
 crowded town ; and obtaining its food on the verge of 
 rivers, canals, or fens. They are not only passively 
 harmless, but positively useful ; and even the hallowed 
 charm of moral virtue invests them. In ancient Egypt 
 the stork was esteemed sacred; second only to the 
 ibis, and was shrined among the divinities of that land 
 of gods. Congenial feelings are kindled in its favour 
 wherever it takes up its residence, whether in Africa 
 or the East, Switzerland or Holland : in the latter it 
 builds on the house-top, amid the din and bustle of 
 population, or else selects the summits of the loftiest 
 trees* Their house-top nest in Holland remains undis- 
 
Ill 
 
 turbed for many years, the owners returning to the 
 cherished spot in their " appointed time;" and the joy 
 manifested on their taking possession again, and their 
 attachment to their compassionate hosts, is a very an- 
 them of joy and gratitude. The history of the female 
 stork which perished in the conflagration of Delft is a 
 trait of affection " strong as death:" repeated and un- 
 successful were her efforts to carry off her unfledged 
 young, and she chose to perish with them rather than 
 leave them to their fate alone a suttee worthy of 
 record. Nor is this an insulated luminous spot in their 
 remarkable lives, there are many other incontestable 
 proofs of similar affection and devotion. 
 
 The parent birds are a model of excessive attach- 
 ment to their helpless offspring : as soon as they are 
 capable of exercising their pinions, their parents bear 
 them on their own wings, and then lead them gently in 
 circles round the nest. Hence the beautiful image of 
 the Scriptures, " HE shall bear them up as on eagle's 
 wings," thus literally true of the stork, personified 
 emblem of what is " lovely and of good report." 
 
 The nightingale leaves us generally towards the end 
 of August or in September. The genus sylvia do not 
 linger at farthest beyond the middle of October. Ere 
 this the light of the glow-worm has waned and suffered 
 its annual eclipse. The nightingale sometimes con- 
 structs its nest of skeleton leaves. 
 
 We were informed that a gentleman near Bridg- 
 north, who has particularly attended to the habits of 
 the nightingale for many years, has fully ascertained 
 that this bird commences its migratory flight in the 
 night, and have been told by those who have kept 
 nightingales for many years, that for a day or two 
 before their usual and fixed period of migration 
 they become restless, and beat themselves so violently 
 
112 
 
 against the bars of the cage, that but for the precaution 
 of lining the interior, these struggles might be suicidal. 
 " Birds," says the " British Naturalist," " must roam in 
 quest of food ; nor is it a hardship, it is a wise pro- 
 vision. Were they to remain, and had they access to 
 the embryos of life in their then state, one season 
 would go far to make the country a desert ; and even 
 the birds would be deprived of their summer's sub- 
 sistence for themselves and their young." 
 
 On the llth of December last, about half-past 
 three in the afternoon, on the Derby side of Burton- 
 on-Trent, we witnessed an immense assemblage of 
 starlings returned from emigration. This gregarious 
 flock sported in curves and eddies, then whirled en 
 masse,, then stretched far in a fine undulating line, 
 the line of beauty. Sometimes they rose to a con- 
 siderable elevation, and then fell to a lower plane, and 
 would occasionally form a dense aggregate, accom- 
 panied with a total obscuration and eclipse of the land- 
 scape beneath. There were more than thousands, 
 myriads in number. Their graceful curves, and ser- 
 pentine play, and congregated phalanx, altogether con- 
 stituted to us a phenomenon novel and interesting ; 
 while their reeling and sportive figures, ever varying, 
 were of the most beautiful description, and exceeded 
 all that art has ever accomplished in the mazes of the 
 dance. 
 
 Migration is seen in the insect world, and even 
 butterflies sometimes migrate. In the " Mem. de la 
 Societe de Phys. et d'Hist. Nat. de Geneve," we find 
 that an immense swarm of the painted lady (papilio 
 cardui, Lin.), forming a column of from ten to fifteen 
 feet broad, was observed in the district of Grandson, 
 Canton de Vaud, in 1828. They appeared to have 
 traversed the country with great rapidity from north to 
 
113 
 
 south, not deviating from their course, and forming a 
 compact body. This is rather remarkable, seeing that 
 the larvae of this insect are not gregarious, but insulated 
 from their kind. Bonelli of Turin mentions a similar 
 phenomenon. The multitude was immense, and their 
 direction also from north to south. At night the flowers 
 were completely clothed with them. Their numbers 
 diminished towards the end of March. In the Memoirs 
 of the Academy of Turin a flight of the same kind is 
 stated to have been observed towards the close of the 
 last century. 
 
 The migration of the locust is an event of terrible 
 importance in the balance of nature, and the fate of 
 kingdoms may be involved in it. On the wings of 
 one of the locust family the Arabs discern some of 
 their own characters, and a locust is thus made to 
 address Mahomet : " We are the army of the great 
 God; we produce ninety-nine eggs: if the hundred 
 were completed, we should consume the whole earth, 
 and all that is in it." The prophet Joel describes 
 their devastation in glowing yet correct language : 
 " The land is as the garden of Eden before them, and 
 behind them a desolate wilderness." * The myriads 
 of these creatures (gryllus migratorius] which some- 
 times congregate together, and the extent of devasta- 
 tion they produce, would scarcely appear credible were 
 the facts not well authenticated. In August, 1747, a 
 swarm of locusts entered Transylvania, and such were 
 their numbers that they occupied four hours in their 
 passage over the place : the width of the swarm was 
 some hundreds of fathoms, and its density such as to 
 exclude daylight and darken the sun ; so that people 
 could not see each other at a distance of twenty paces. 
 The guards of the Red Tower fired at them to prevent 
 * Joel, ii. 3. 
 
their ingress; but though whole ranks were mowed 
 down, and the swarm divided where the balls and shot 
 told, the chasm was instantly filled up again, and the 
 mass proceeded. In the East governors of particular 
 districts sometimes command the military with a train 
 of artillery to take the field against them. 
 
 Our intelligent friend the Rev. Mr. Davies has 
 kindly favoured us with the following remarkable ac- 
 count of a swarm of locusts which he witnessed, and 
 it may challenge competition with any on record : 
 
 " There are but few of the realities of life which 
 afford to the observer the same ideas of magnitude 
 and sublimity with which previous imagination has 
 invested them. We are fascinated by the descriptions 
 we read in our early and romantic days : we feed our 
 love of the marvellous by perhaps an unconscious addi- 
 tion of circumstances, which, when the anticipated 
 object is once presented to the eye, fade away, and by 
 their unexpected absence as much depreciate the 
 present object below its intrinsic value as by their 
 flattering presence they had placed it above its just 
 level in anticipation. Perhaps it results from the 
 original dignity of the human soul that it is capable of 
 creating an imagery which facts can never realise : 
 perhaps from the perpetual disappointment in our ex- 
 pectations of grandeur and delight, we should learn 
 that this sphere of existence was not appointed as the 
 state where our faculties are to receive their due and 
 legitimate fruition ; but that another world alone can 
 unfold to us those scenes of rapture which can fill and 
 satiate our enlarged desires. To me, certainly not 
 over sanguine in my expectations, disappointment has 
 almost in every instance occurred on beholding for the 
 first time some object of whose magnitude, or beauty, 
 or sublimity, I had previously read. I know but one 
 
115 
 
 exception, and that was in my first realisation of a 
 flight of locusts. As far as my neglect of taking a 
 memorandum respecting the time will permit me to be 
 accurate, I think the first instance in which I beheld 
 this famine-portending host was in 1810, at Caunpore, 
 in the East Indies. Their approach was signified by 
 the cloudy appearance of the heavens towards the north. 
 As the invaders came nearer the sky became more 
 obscure, till at length, when they might be said to be 
 contending with us for the possession of our canton- 
 ments, they covered, or rather animated, the whole 
 visible atmosphere with so dense and overwhelming a 
 multitude, that it became suddenly as dark as the 
 evening twilight. The elevation in which they moved 
 appeared to be from about ten feet, to one or, perhaps, 
 two or even three hundred feet above the earth ; the 
 whole of which height, in every possible direction, was. 
 so thickly occupied by these rapacious freebooters 
 that it appeared impossible in any part to thrust a 
 finger in the interstices between the bodies. This 
 flight, which was from north to south, continued for the 
 space, if I do not err, of three days, during which time, 
 though moving with their usual rapidity, the cloud was 
 equally dense. One fact struck me forcibly at the 
 time, as affording a faint idea of the innumerable mul- 
 titude of these creatures, that though the tired, and 
 maimed, and wounded fell on the ground in such pro- 
 portions that it was impossible to walk out for several 
 days after without crushing as many of them as could 
 lie in the space measured by four feet, yet this defal- 
 cation caused no apparent diminution in the invading 
 army. Had I not seen the main body of the volitants 
 I should have considered the prostrate lingerers to be 
 the nearest approach to infinitude I could imagine ; 
 but I should think that these did not amount to the 
 
116 
 
 proportion of one to a million of those which still 
 maintained their career. I observed also that the 
 wings which fell were proper tionably much more nu- 
 merous than the bodies ; which made me think that 
 Providence having supplied these creatures with four 
 wings each, the additional pair could be used in those 
 cases where fatigue, or pressure, or other contingencies, 
 might deprive them of that pair which appeared to be 
 of stronger fabric. Our only means of defence against 
 this devastating host was to sound gongs and tom-toms: 
 this means was resorted to very generally, and a most 
 obstreperous symphony was performed, which had the 
 desired effect of driving the unmusical barbarians to 
 some distant land. Had they alighted in our vicinity 
 nothing could be expected but a universal spoliation of 
 all that was eatable : the harvest of a whole province 
 Qould scarcely afford a single meal to such fearful 
 numbers." 
 
 In 1748 a swarm of locusts came within twenty 
 leagues of Vienna. One swarm was half an hour's 
 journey in the width of the column ; but after three 
 hours' rapid flight the termination of its length could 
 not be seen. In 593 the devastations of the locusts 
 occasioned a famine in many countries. In 677 Syria 
 and Mesopotamia were over-run with them ; and in 852 
 a swarm visited the West. Their daily marches were 
 computed at twenty miles, with intervals of rest. They 
 seemed to be headed by a captain and commander, 
 and what a host ! The winds drove them into the 
 Belgic ocean; and the tide having cast their dead 
 bodies on shore, a dreadful pestilence was the conse- 
 quence. In 1271 all the corn fields about Milan were 
 destroyed, and in 1339 those of Lombardy. In the 
 summer of 1815 we observed considerable quantities 
 of dead locusts on the shore at Yarmouth, cast up by 
 
117 
 
 the tide, and ascertained the species to be the true 
 migratory locust. 
 
 The gryllus cristatus is the largest of the locust tribe, 
 and at least five times the size of the gryllus migra- 
 torius. It is sold in the markets of the Levant as an 
 article of food, and is likely to have been that on 
 which the Baptist subsisted in the wilderness of Judea: 
 it was permitted in the Mosaic ritual, and we think it 
 absurd to suppose it to have been the hymenea cour- 
 baril. 
 
 The Rev. W. T. Bree * informs us that the bursting 
 of alder buds is contemporaneous with the period 
 when eels leave their brumal retreats ; and the return 
 of snipes from their migration simultaneous with the 
 flowering of certain wild plants, such as the draba 
 verna and others. It has been ingeniously suggested 
 by Mr. Lees that the flowering of a plant might be the 
 harbinger of the advent of some bird, and the opening 
 blossom of a plant be announced by the appearance of 
 an insect. These contemporaneous events are very 
 interesting, and if accurately recorded may eventually 
 conduce to the solution of a problem curious in it- 
 self, and interesting to the naturalist and lover of 
 nature's loveliness. The question, however, will still 
 recur in full force, who or what carried the interesting 
 intelligence to the swallow or the stork, when far away 
 from Britain's isle and Europe ? The sympathetic chord, 
 whatever it be, vibrates from pole to pole, and encircles 
 the globe. The migration of birds seems regulated by 
 a changed electric state of the earth or air. This is 
 Heaven's electro-magnetic telegraph, which announces 
 the intelligence to a distant clime, and none so universal 
 or so swift. It is this which tells our absentee feathered 
 race that the spring has indeed returned, and the 
 * Mag. Nat. Hist. No. II. p. 17. 
 
118 
 
 " time of the singing of birds is come," that they 
 may now safely return and join their notes with the 
 woodland choir. A mere change of temperature does 
 not amount to the full estimate required here, for how 
 can that penetrate the clay cearment of the Canada 
 jumping mouse, and other animals, surrounded by and 
 deeply buried in non-conducting media, as the marmot 
 and others. The cause that rouses from torpidity is 
 doubtless an electric one, and in the migration of birds 
 the same cause is in full operative influence. 
 
 We certainly know not what instinct means, and there- 
 fore cannot give its portraiture. In many things it is 
 the image of reason, and its counterpart. In some 
 cases it even transcends the powers of reason ; for it 
 occasionally seems to catch a glimpse of futurity, and 
 be its prophet. Still its mechanism is limited ; while 
 reason has capabilities endowed with infinite expansion, 
 "grows with our growth, and strengthens with our 
 strength." Nor can we describe what may be the 
 majesty of its powers, when we shall have " shuffled 
 off this mortal coil," and it is unshackled by resistance, 
 its vision unclouded. 
 
 " Creation needs no new fiat ; but the succession of 
 events, throughout all her works, depends on laws 
 which are unerring, because they are not imposed by 
 any thing from without, but are the very nature and 
 constitution of the beings that appear to obey them. 
 It is this which makes nature so wonderful ; which so 
 stamps upon it the impress of an Almighty Creator: 
 its parts and phenomena are millions; the primary 
 Power that puts all in motion is but one." 
 
 " Yea the stork in the heavens knoweth her ap- 
 pointed time ; and the turtle, and the crane, and the 
 swallow, observe the time of their coming." * 
 * Jeremiah, viii. 7. 
 
119 
 
 CHAP. X. 
 
 LIGHT EMITTED FROM VEGETATION. EXOTIC LU- 
 MINOUS INSECTS, PAUSUS SPH^EROCEROS, AND 
 
 OTHERS. ELATER NOCTILUCUS. FULGORA LAN- 
 
 TERNARIA AND CANDELARIA. INDIAN GROSBEAK. 
 
 LAMPYRIS NOCTILUCA, OR GLOW-WORM, HABITS, 
 
 ETC. LAMPYRIS ITALICA. 
 
 LIGHT is derived from a variety of sources, but the 
 present enquiry embraces the question as connected 
 with the living system, chiefly the insect world, in some 
 of which it forms a very wonderful investiture. De- 
 cayed wood and some plants emit a phosphorescent 
 light ; and the potato, when in a heap, is said to be 
 sometimes luminous. Some of these species of illumin- 
 ation are of an electric kind ; others are owing to the 
 occasional presence of luminous. insects, as the scolo- 
 pendra electrica, &c. ; and sometimes, we have no doubt, 
 to the presence of luminous ova, or parasitic luminous 
 animalculae : the increase of temperature on the decom- 
 position of vegetable matter might be a sufficient cause 
 of evolution. Plants of the rhizomorpha kind are dis- 
 covered often luminous in mines. Mr. James Ryan 
 informs us he has met with plants in mines almost 
 sufficiently luminous to read by ; and the counsellor 
 Erdmann thus describes the luminosity of the rhizo- 
 morpha, in one of the coal mines near Dresden : 
 " I saw the luminous plants here in wonderful beauty ; 
 the impression produced by the spectacle I shall never 
 forget. It appeared on descending into the mine as 
 if we were entering an enchanted castle, the abun- 
 
120 
 
 dance of these plants was so great, that the roof, walls, 
 and pillars were entirely covered with them, and the 
 beautiful light they cast around almost dazzled the 
 eye. The light they give out is like faint moonshine, 
 so that two persons near to each other could readily 
 distinguish the outlines of their bodies. The light 
 appears to be most considerable when the tempera- 
 ture of the mines is comparatively high." Mr. de 
 Luc mentions and describes a luminous phenomenon 
 he observed in cavities in the granitic mountains 
 which form the boundary line between Bayreuth and 
 Bohemia; a very pretty mass it appears lines these 
 cavities, exhibiting a chatoyant lustre of an emerald 
 green colour. A correspondent in the Magazine of 
 Natural History mentions a similar phenomenon near 
 Penryn, Cornwall, which possessed a most beautiful 
 emerald green colour, accompanied with a phospho- 
 rescent brilliancy,' and proceeded from a small moss 
 much resembling the dicranium taxifolium. What 
 have been called " shooting stars," and found sparkling 
 on the ground, seem to be the tremella meteorica, and 
 have been observed apparently to fall from the air. 
 Thus on the night previous to the battle of Brandy- 
 wine, a shooting star was observed by one of the 
 sentinels to fall at no great distance ; it proved to be 
 a sparkling gelatinous mass. 
 
 Among exotic luminous insects we may enumerate, 
 as the most remarkable, the pausus splicer oceros, elater 
 noctilucus, and two species of fulgora. The pausus 
 sphceroceros * was caught by Afzelius, in 1 VQ , at 
 Thornton Hill, in the vicinity of Sierra Leone, having 
 fallen from the ceiling of the house on the table : it 
 appears to live in wood, and to prefer new built 
 
 * See Plate, fig. 3. 
 

 houses. Afzelius says, " happening to stand between 
 the light and the box (in which the insect was con- 
 fined), so that my shadow fell on the animal, I ob- 
 served, to my great astonishment, the globes of the 
 antennae like two lanterns spreading a dim phos- 
 phoric light." 
 
 The elater noctilucus is called cocujas in South Ame- 
 rica, where it is not uncommon : it is about an inch 
 and a half long, and of a brown colour, with the thorax 
 marked on each side by a smooth yellow transparent 
 spot, highly luminous, and diffusing so brilliant a 
 light at night, that a person may, in a favourable 
 position of the insect, see to read the smallest print. 
 Besides these, however, there are two luminous 
 spots beneath the elytra, only visible, of course, when 
 the insect is on wing, and it then appears studded 
 with four rich and vivid gems of a blue lustre ; in 
 fact, the whole body seems a flood of pure light. In 
 the West Indies, particularly St. Domingo, the na- 
 tives employ these insects to give light in managing 
 their household concerns. In travelling, they are 
 wont to attach one to each toe ; and it is stated 
 that in fishing and hunting they require no other 
 light. Pietro Martire informs us, that the elater 
 noctilucus serves the natives of the Spanish West 
 Indies, not only as a light to illuminate their houses, 
 but to extirpate the gnats : on introducing the fire- 
 flies, the gnats become their prey. On festive days, 
 these fire-flies are collected and attached to their 
 clothes and horses ; and, according to the same author, 
 the luminous matter is sometimes rubbed over the face. 
 We are told by Mouffet, that the appearance of the 
 tropical fire-flies, on one occasion, led to a singular 
 result. When Sir Thomas Cavendish and Sir Robert 
 Dudley first landed in the West Indies, the flitting 
 
 G 
 
122 
 
 and moving lights of these insects in the woods im- 
 pressed them with the idea that the Spaniards were 
 advancing, and they returned in consequence to their 
 ships. Eight or ten of these insects put into a phial 
 will yield a light equal to a common candle ; and it is 
 said that this was the only light used by the natives of 
 Hispaniola, &c. prior to the arrival of the Spaniards. 
 The elater noctilucm will be found figured, if we rightly 
 remember, in Rees's Cyclopaedia. It much resembles 
 the elater porcatus, but is more slender, and has two 
 round marks on the thorax like elater oculatus : the 
 elater Ignitus is another luminous species of this genus. 
 
 We are informed that in South America, by way of 
 amusement, small bits of lighted wax taper are affixed 
 to the heads of some of the larger scarabcei ; and thus 
 equipped, they are prompted to march into the room 
 to startle some evening party : such are called cocujas. 
 The scarabceus herculis, a native of South America, is 
 five or six inches long, and seen in numbers on the 
 mammcea americana. A few of these insects, thus 
 illuminated, would certainly have an odd appearance. 
 
 The fulgora lanternaria *, Peruvian lantern-fly, or 
 the fire-fly of the West Indies, measures nearly three 
 inches and a half from the tip of its lantern to that of 
 the tail, and about five inches and a half from tip to 
 tip of the expanded wings. The body is divided 
 into several annular segments: the projecting head 
 nearly equal in length to the entire body of the 
 insect, is oval, inflated, and slightly curved or arched 
 upwards. The ground colour is a fine yellow, with 
 a deep tinge of green in some parts, and marked with 
 numerous bright red and brown variegations in 
 the form of stripes or spots. The wings are large, 
 
 * See Plate, fig. 1. 
 
123 
 
 somewhat yellowish, and very elegantly varied with 
 brown undulations and spots : the lower pair are deco- 
 rated by a large eye-shaped spot, the iris or fringe of 
 the spot being red, and the centre half red and half 
 transparent white : the head or lantern is a pale yellow, 
 with longitudinal stripes. Such is a description of this 
 beautiful insect, thus quaintly expressed by Dr. Grew * : 
 " It is about three inches long, and thick as the 
 ring finger ; the eyes, for bignesse of his body, very 
 small, of a dusky colour, yet glossy and spherical, 
 looking just like two brown seed pearls ; under these 
 stand two small round parts, open at top, which seem 
 to be the roots of a pair of horns, unless any will 
 conceit them to be his eyes. That which beside the 
 figure of the head is most wonderful in this insect, is 
 the shining property of the same part, whereby it looks 
 in the night like a little lanthorne (lamphorne), so that 
 two or three of these, fastened to a stick, or otherwise 
 conveniently disposed of, will give sufficient light to 
 those that travail or walk in the night." The lantern-fly 
 is a native of Surinam, and many other parts of South 
 America, and during night diffuses so powerful a light 
 that it is often employed by the negroes to conduct 
 them on their way ; indeed, from the intense heat of . 
 the day, travelling by night in the Brazils, &c. becomes 
 an object of necessity as well as of choice. The Chevalier 
 de Mascarenhas informs us that it is common in such 
 cases for the negro attendants to cut down sticks from 
 the bamboo or orange trees, and attaching a few of 
 these interesting insects to the tip of the staff, the illu- 
 mination thus obtained, when carried before the party, 
 yields quite sufficient light for their guidance; that 
 
 * " Catalogue of Natural and Artificial Rarities," &c. Lon- 
 don, folio, 1685. p. 158. 
 
 G 2 
 
124 
 
 thus equipped, he has travelled by night through 
 many districts of the Brazils, and threaded the woods 
 of South America. Thus had the aborigines of South 
 America, in all times past, provided for them, by Divine 
 Beneficence, a living lamp, which, supplied from itself, 
 required neither oil nor gas to feed it, and ever bright, 
 needed no hand of art to trim it : it was kindled at 
 first by that BEING who said "Let there be light,'* 
 and it was so. And our friend informs us, that when 
 the hedges, chiefly formed of some species of the genus 
 rosa, are illuminated by these gems of living light, it 
 is a truly brilliant scene. He tells us also, that the 
 light intermits, as in the glow-worm, as if it were 
 occasioned by the respiratory organs or the movement 
 of the abdomen ; hence there can be little doubt that 
 it is connected with the circulation of the blood. 
 
 Madame Merian describes her surprise on first 
 seeing this light. Some of these it appears had been 
 imprisoned in a box, but the noise they made awoke 
 her ; and on opening the lid to see what was the matter, 
 one flash of fire after another issued from the box. 
 Lucifer, or porte-lanterne^ is the name given to this 
 insect by Mad. Merian, and is figured (pi. 49.) in 
 her " Insects of Surinam."* The head is a translucent 
 mass, and the light shed by it so great, that according 
 to Mad. Merian it would not be difficult to read a 
 newspaper by it. " Un livre d'un caractefe pareil 
 a celui de la Gazette d'Hollande," these are her 
 words. She does not pretend to draw the insect by 
 its own light, as Dr. Darwin has made her do. 
 
 Roesel gives us a beautiful representation of the 
 insect. The truth of these exquisite colours and shad- 
 ings has been questioned by De Geer ; but we are of 
 opinion, that, so far from exceeding the truth, they fall 
 
125 
 
 infinitely short of the beautiful original. Le Chevalier M. 
 informs us that the annular segments of the insect, 
 attached to fine metallic thread, formed into armlets 
 and necklaces, are worn by the higher ranks of the 
 Brazilian ladies, and that their splendour is exquisite 
 and brilliant. Such a necklace will cost from 101. to 
 14/. sterling. 
 
 The fulgora candelaria *, a native of China, is a 
 much smaller species than the other. It sometimes 
 measures near two inches long, and two and a half 
 inches broad when the wings are expanded. It is not 
 an infrequent insect in cabinets : we possess a great 
 many specimens. The head and curved horn are of a 
 fine reddish brown, occasionally mottled with white 
 specks somewhat mealy. The eyes and proboscis are 
 translucent, and curiously, as we have seen, reflect a 
 nebulous image of the candle. The under wings are 
 orange-coloured, with broad velvet black tips; the supe- 
 rior wings are decorated with yellow spots and bars, re- 
 ticulated with diffused squares, &c. We are informed by 
 the Rev. Mr. Davies of Hereford, that in India \heful- 
 gora candelaria illuminates the hedges with a faint purple 
 light, as is the case also in South America, from three 
 to five feet high ; and he observed the hedges on the banks 
 of the Ganges, under the Rajemahal mountains, about 
 300 miles above Calcutta, particularly brilliant. This 
 is the general altitude we have observed of the lam- 
 pyris italica in the north of Italy; and being the usual 
 height of nocturnal insects, it seems probable that our 
 view is correct. The apterous glow-worm yields a 
 yelloiv light ; but the lampyris italica on the wing 
 evolves a purplish gleam, which appears to be the case 
 with the fire-flies of China. This is the insect selected 
 
 * See Plate, fig. 2. 
 G 3 
 
126 
 
 by the tenawhit to decorate its nest perhaps to scare 
 some nocturnal spoiler. There is, besides these, the 
 fulgora diadema, which much resembles the latter 
 species, and is a native of tropical climes. 
 
 The Indian grossbeak, alluded to by Dr. Buchanan, 
 builds its pendent nest on the highest tree, chiefly the 
 palmyra ; and this tree is particularly selected when 
 it happens to overhang a well or rivulet. These curious 
 nests are woven with grass in the shape of a calabash, 
 only more oblong ; and it thus depends from some 
 branch, swinging in the wind, the cradle nest rock- 
 ing the infant brood. The nest usually consists of 
 several compartments, and it is illuminated in the in- 
 terior with fire-flies (fulgora candelaria * ) : these are at- 
 tached by clay or some other adhesive substance. What 
 this singular investiture means, it would be no easy 
 matter to determine : whether the bird has some pas- 
 sionate fondness for an artificial illumination of its 
 abode, or it is the subject of amusement, it would be 
 difficult to determine. If it merely served for food, it 
 does not seem very likely it would glue them to the 
 walls of its tenement. The butcher-bird, however, 
 impales his victims alive on spines of thorns ; and the 
 caddis-worm makes no scruple occasionally of cement- 
 ing to his case a helix flumatilis, and its living tenant. 
 This interesting bird is very tractable and docile, and 
 may be easily taught to repeat many little tricks ; 
 such as, at a specific signal from the lover, to bring him 
 the golden ticas from between his mistress' eye-brows, 
 or even carry her a note ; and we have been told by a 
 friend, many years resident in India, that this little bird 
 is very tame, perching on the finger and accompany- 
 ing its protector, fond of being caressed. Dr. Claudius 
 
 See Plate, fig. 2. 
 
127 
 
 Buchanan, in his " Christian Researches in Asia," 
 mentions writing one of his letters under the nest of 
 this bird, which had lighted it up with fire-flies, "as 
 if," he facetiously remarks, " to see company." 
 
 Of luminous insects in this country, the lampyris 
 noctiluca, or glow-worm, and the scolopendra electrica 
 and scolopendra phosphorea, are the most conspicuous and 
 common. Kirby and Spence state that some insects, 
 not commonly suspected, may, under peculiar circum- 
 stances, evolve light, such as the mole cricket (gryllus 
 gryllotalpa) ; and, on the authority of Dr. Sutton, it is 
 even conjectured that the ignis fatuus may be of this 
 description. We have elsewhere described a pheno- 
 menon of this kind witnessed by us in Hertfordshire 
 last summer, apparently connected with the presence 
 of a luminous insect. * The scolopendra electrica we 
 first found in Huntingdonshire, and the lampyris noc- 
 tiluca most abundantly in the vicinity of Oswestry, 
 which indeed seems a prolific region for them. It had 
 been supposed, that the property of emitting light was 
 confined to the female in the lampyris noctiluca. Ray 
 first pointed out that the male insect also yielded light, 
 and the circumstance was confirmed by Geoffrey and 
 Miiller. In the males of lampyris splendidula, and 
 lampyris hemiptera, the light is distinct, and may be 
 recognised when the insect is on the wing, but is of 
 inferior brilliancy, and confined to minute points. 
 The glow-worm, in the case of the larva and perfect 
 insect, have different degrees of luminosity, and some- 
 times may have been confounded together. It has 
 been observed, that the females of the glow-worm can 
 occasionally conceal or eclipse their light and it may 
 be to secure themselves from becoming the prey of the 
 
 * See " A Treatise on Atmospherical Electricity," Whittaker, 
 1830. 2d edition. 
 
 G 4 
 
128 
 
 nightingale or some other nocturnal bird : Mr. White, 
 indeed, thought that they regularly extinguished their 
 torch between the hours of eleven and twelve. The 
 light with which it is invested, may perhaps occasion- 
 ally prevent its insect enemies from making an attack 
 on it as the wolf, and other ravenous beasts of prey, 
 are deterred from making an approach on travellers at 
 night when encircled by fire. Though, it must be ad- 
 mitted, that many of the species of the lampyris are 
 without wings, and want even elytra the female of 
 the lampyris italica is said to be a winged insect. 
 
 The lampyris noctiluca *, or glow-worm, is sufficiently 
 known as a native of Britain at least the female of this 
 insect, for the winged male is not so commonly re- 
 cognised. The female is of a dull earth brown colour 
 above, and beneath tinged of a somewhat rosy tint, 
 with the two or three last segments of a pale sulphur 
 colour; and from these the light emanates. The 
 larva, pupa, and perfect insect, differ but little from 
 each other, and all of them are luminous : the light, 
 however, is most brilliant in the last stage of the in- 
 sect. According to the observations made by the ex- 
 cellent author of the " Journal of a Naturalist," the 
 glow-worm sometimes becomes, in all likelihood, the 
 bon-bon of the toad. According to him the light of 
 the glow-worm has sensibly diminished after the 14th 
 of July, though deep in the herbage a clear steady light 
 has been observed as late as August and September. 
 It was observed as late on one occasion as the 28th of 
 September, 1826, though very different in its sparkling 
 from that of the summer months. " If the summer 
 light," he observes, " of the glow-worm is displayed as 
 a signal-taper, the appearance of this autumnal light 
 
 * See Plate, fig. 4., male and female. 
 
129 
 
 can have no such object, unless it serves as a point of 
 union in their supposed migrations, like the leading 
 call in migratory birds, or the summons of the war- 
 whoop among Indian tribes." 
 
 The following observations on the glow-worm are 
 addressed to the editor of the Philosophical Magazine*: 
 " The female deposits her eggs in the month of June 
 or July, among moss, grass, &c. These eggs are of 
 a yellow colour, and emit light. After remaining 
 about five or six weeks, the larvae break their shells 
 and make their appearance : at first they appear white, 
 and are very small, but they soon increase in size, and 
 their colour changes to a dark brown, or nearly black 
 colour. The body of the larva is formed of eleven 
 rings. It has six feet, and two rows of reddish spots 
 down the back. It emits light in the dark : this light 
 arises from the last ring of its body under the tail, 
 and appears like two brilliant spots when attentively 
 examined. The larvae are seen creeping about and 
 shining during the fine nights in autumn, and the light 
 they emit is to direct them to their food. They feed 
 on small snails, the carcasses of insects, &c. They 
 frequently cast off their skins : after the expiration of 
 about one year and nine months from their birth, they 
 arrive at their perfect size. They then cease to eat, 
 cast off their skin, and assume another appearance. 
 The form of the perfect insect may be discovered 
 through a thin skin that covers them. After remain- 
 ing in this state two or three weeks (scarcely ever 
 moving), they throw off their last skin, and arrive at 
 perfection. The male then appears a perfect beetle, 
 having wings, and wing cases. The female, on the 
 contrary, has neither the one nor the other: she is 
 
 * Phil. Mag. vol. Iviii. p. 53. 
 G 5 
 
130 
 
 larger than the male, and of a lighter colour. It is the 
 female that principally shines in a perfect state. Her 
 light is far superior to that emitted by the larva, and 
 arises from the three last rings of the body on the 
 lower side." 
 
 The male, smaller than the female, is a winged in- 
 sect, and supplied with wing-cases ; and though Dr. 
 Shaw seems to doubt whether the male be luminous, 
 the fact is now sufficiently established. The male has 
 toward the anal segment two brilliant fire spots : its 
 light, when seen on the wing, is somewhat purplish. 
 In the Phil. Trans, for 1684, Mr. Waller maintains 
 the luminosity of the male, which was found by him at 
 Northaw in Hertfordshire. In Italy the belles adorn 
 their head-dress with the lampyris italica; and it 
 appears that a similar practice prevails in India. The 
 lampyris italica is figured in Olivier, No. 28., pi. 28., 
 fig. 12.: in truth, the male of the lampyris noctiluca 
 of this country bears so close a resemblance, that it 
 is not improbable the insect may be the same ; the 
 greater atmospheric temperature varying the intensity 
 of light in an Italian clime. Doubtless, too, what have 
 been distinguished as separate insects, under the names 
 lampyris noctiluca, spendidula, &c. are the females of 
 the same insect ; the one being the female perfect 
 insect, and the other the larva. In Lombardy, Tus- 
 cany, &c. we have picked up glow-worms in no respect 
 dissimilar from our own. 
 
 The Italians have a superstitious dread of these 
 beautifully adorned insects ; believing them to be the 
 spirits of their departed ancestors. Sir J. E. Smith 
 mentions that some Moorish ladies were taken pri- 
 soners at sea, and, until they could be ransomed, 
 lived in a house beyond the city wa'ls of Genoa: 
 during the period of their stay, they were visited by 
 
131 
 
 many of the respectable inhabitants of the city. On 
 one of these visits, they found the house shut up, and 
 the Moorish females in great grief and consternation. 
 Some of the beautiful lampyris italica had found in- 
 gress into the house, and these brilliant guests were 
 supposed to be no other than the troubled spirits of 
 their relations. We remember one evening, on coming 
 from Arcqua (celebrated for the tomb and former re- 
 sidence of Petrarch) to Padua, that all the hedges and 
 shrubs were illuminated with myriads of these " dia- 
 monds of the night:" the effect was very beautiful. 
 
 G 6 
 
132 
 
 CHAP. XI. 
 
 THE GLOW-WORM. OPINIONS ON THE LUMINOUS 
 
 MATTER OF INSECTS. THAT OF THE GLOW-WORM, 
 AND CAUSE OF ITS EXHIBITION. PHENOMENA ON 
 ITS INTRODUCTION, AND THAT OF THE INSECT, INTO 
 VARIOUS MEDIA. OUR EXPERIMENTS AND CONCLU- 
 SIONS. DR. CARUS'S DISCOVERY. TO WHAT PUR- 
 POSE SUBSERVIENT. CONCLUSION. 
 
 NUMEROUS opinions have obtained on the proximate 
 cause or source of this curious illumination. Mr. 
 Macartney, in the Transactions of the Royal Society, 
 has given an interesting detail of experiments and ob- 
 servations on several luminous insects. In the lam- 
 pyris noctiluca, and in the elater noctilucus and igni- 
 tus, the light, he observes, proceeds from a substance 
 not distinguishable from the interstitial substance 
 except in its colour, which is yellow. The light- 
 yielding matter reposes under the transparent parts 
 of the skin, through which casement it is seen; 
 and he infers that the luminous matter in the glow- 
 worm is absorbed, being replaced by the interstitial 
 matter when the season for emitting light is gone by. 
 He observed two minute elliptical sacs formed of an 
 elastic fibre, wound spirally, and similar to that of the 
 tracheae, which contained a yellow substance, soft in 
 consistency, and closer in texture than that lining the 
 adjoining region, and affording a more brilliant and 
 permanent light. This light he concluded to be less 
 under the control of the insect than the luminous sub- 
 stance in its vicinity, which he infers it has the pro- 
 
133 
 
 perty voluntarily to extinguish, referable to some in- 
 scrutable power dependent on volition, and not, as was 
 advocated by Carradori, by retracting it under a mem- 
 brane : when he extracted the latter from living glow- 
 worms, it afforded no light, while the two sacs in like 
 circumstances shone uninterruptedly for several hours. 
 The reason, however, of the apparent extinction of 
 the luminous matter in the penultimate and ante- 
 penultimate annuls, we have found to be the envelope- 
 ment of the luminous matter by the surrounding inter- 
 stitial mass, and if it be carefully sought for, it will be 
 found deeply imbedded in it : this is the reason of the 
 eclipse. Mr. Rogerson says the eggs of the insect are 
 luminous, and we have certainly found luminous matter 
 excreted from the glow-worm. This occasionally 
 displayed, and oftentimes merged and lost in the 
 commoninte rstitial mass, may be the ova ; at any rate, 
 when the luminous matter is found, it appears under 
 the form of a congeries of minute brilliant points. 
 Mr. Macartney is of opinion that the interstitial sub- 
 stance which surrounds the oval yellow masses under 
 the transparent spots in the thorax of the elater nocti- 
 lucus has the power of exhibiting light; in which 
 inference he considers himself warranted from the 
 radiated structure of this substance conjoined with the 
 translucency of the adjoining crust. This observer 
 was unable to conclude upon the peculiar organisation 
 that contributed to the efflux of light in the hollow 
 projections offulgora lanternaria and candelaria, the 
 hollow antennae ofpausus sphcerocerus, and that under 
 the entire integument of the scolopendra electrica. 
 Respecting the scolopendra electrica, he conceives that 
 it will not shine unless it be previously exposed to solar 
 light this conclusion is, however, not warranted by 
 the premises. He has even in other cases inferred 
 
that solar light is injurious to luminous animals, and 
 that in the case of one at least of those in the sea 
 it retreats from the surface. He tried electrical sti- 
 muli, but supposed them to act merely as mechanical 
 powers in educing light. 
 
 Dr. Darwin supposed that the luminous exhibition 
 was owing to a secretion of some phosphoric matter, 
 and a slow combustion arising from this phosphorus 
 entering into combination with the oxygen inspired 
 the large spiracula in glow-worms seemed to give a 
 plausible colouring to the idea. It was also stated 
 that the light was increased by heat and oxygen 
 and extinguished by cold, also hydrogen, and carbonic 
 acid gas. We have clearly ascertained, however, ex- 
 perimentally, that the luminous matter does not con- 
 tain phosphorus that the light is not sensibly in- 
 creased by the purest oxygen and is not extinguished 
 in hydrogen and carbonic' acid gas. Spallanzani re- 
 .garded the luminous matter as a compound of hydro- 
 gen and phosphoretted hydrogen. Carradori found 
 that the luminous matter of the lampyris italica shone 
 in vacuo, oil, water, and under other circumstances, to 
 the exclusion of oxygen; and he and Brugnatelli con- 
 cluded, that the emission of light was owing to its ab- 
 sorption in food or air, and subsequently secreted in a 
 sensible form. Mr. Macartney ascertained that the 
 light of the glow-worm is not diminished by immersion 
 in water, or increased by the application of heat. We 
 find, on the contrary, that the maximum of brilliancy 
 is exhibited at 98 or 99 Fahrenheit, while it declines as 
 this temperature is increased. Foster and Spallanzani 
 assert that glow-worms shine more brilliantly in oxygen ; 
 while Beckerheim, Dr. Hulme, and Sir H. Davy, dis- 
 covered no such effect and to these last we adjoin 
 our testimony. Spallanzani and Dr. Hulme state that 
 
135 
 
 the light of the glow-worm is extinguished in hydrogen 
 and carbonic acid gas. Sir H. Davy, on the other 
 hand, found that the light was not sensibly diminished 
 in hydrogen, and we have not only found the same 
 thing, but that the animal itself does not seem to suffer 
 materially in this gas ; and though it expires in carbonic 
 acid gas, the light suffers no eclipse by the fate of the 
 insect. Dr. John Davy found, at Kandy, on the 30th of 
 June, while the air was 73, that the temperature of 
 a large species of glow-worm was 74 Fahrenheit ; and 
 we have seen the thermometer affected by nearly a 
 degree from suffering the glow-worm to crawl over its 
 bulb. * 
 
 On the night of the 10th of June, 1822, on return- 
 ing from Llanymennech to Oswestry, in Shropshire, 
 we picked up two glow-worms from the grass on the 
 roadside. The brilliancy was intensely beautiful 
 the penultimate and antepenultimate rings of the under 
 side of the abdomen were the portions illuminated, to- 
 gether with two luminous points on the anal segment] 
 The night was dry, and much lightning prevailed: we 
 repeatedly held the insects exposed and attached to the 
 spikes of grass to the repeated flashes of lightning which 
 played on them, but this seemed by no means to dis- 
 concert them ; for their luminous paraphernalia re- 
 mained still unveiled. One placed on the watch-glass 
 gave sufficient light to ascertain the hour : we arrived at 
 half-past 10 P. M., and introducing them into a room 
 with a candle, the light gradually diminished in inten- 
 sity, and became ultimately extinct, attenuating from 
 the edges of the bands or discs, and disappearing in 
 patches toward the centre. The thermometer stood at 
 
 * Dr. Todd transmitted to the Royal Society a paper on the 
 glow-worm, subsequent to our communication on the subject to 
 Linnean Society. It appears to contain no novelty. 
 
136 
 
 70 F. The insects, when undisturbed, seemed anxious 
 to gain the summits of the blades of grass toward 
 evening and at night, and from thence displayed their 
 beauteous insignia by holding up the lower rings of 
 the abdomen. When they had ceased to shine, as 
 well as during the day, they sought the roots of the 
 grass. The luminous matter was carefully inspected 
 by a lens, but not the slightest undulatory motion 
 could be perceived which might connect it with any 
 thing like combustion, and the luminous matter ap- 
 peared incased in a transparent sac. On the 12th of 
 June, at 20 minutes past 7 P. M., excluded from light, 
 it had already kindled up a faint beam : when the insect 
 was exposed to light, it ceased to shine, and appeared 
 annularly translucent in the membrane which covered 
 the luminous belts. At 50 minutes past 9 P. M. it 
 shone exceedingly bright; still, by the most careful 
 inspection, no undulatory movement could be seen, 
 which proves it not to be a languid combustion, and 
 though the light evidently intermits, it does not glow 
 as in aphlogistic exhibitions. While it remained at- 
 tached to a spike of grass, we could easily read a letter 
 by the light it shed, by moving the insect over the 
 lines. About this period, thermometer constantly 
 ranging from 70 to 80 F., the glow-worm shone most 
 vividly, and one was so intense on the road from 
 Oswestry to Ruyton, that a horse started at the 
 gleam, and nearly overthrew its rider. Our observ- 
 ations would certainly prove that the luminous matter 
 is under the control or management of the insect, 
 and we have noticed that the light is kindled up when it 
 moves on the leaf, and its palpi are then employed. We 
 once found five luminous specks, of a minute oval form, 
 in the box which contained our glow-worms : they 
 were evidently secreted by the insect, and might be 
 
137 
 
 the ova. They continued luminous for some time, 
 the light was of a different tint of colour, which may 
 be accounted for on the simple intervention of atmo- 
 spheric air in one case, and the transparent film of the 
 membrane which enveloped it, in the other. We 
 always observed that our glow-worms concealed them- 
 selves during the day among the roots of the grass, 
 and that they feed only at night seems very evident. 
 On holding the candle near, they do not withdraw 
 their shining immediately, but it gradually attenuates. 
 We let one fall on a cold slab of marble, but it still 
 shone brilliantly the insect, doubtless, having the 
 power of sustaining a superior temperature. 
 
 The physical strength of the glow-worm seems not in- 
 considerable : we had about two dozen in a box, supplied 
 with grass and moss : the lid was loosely tacked down, 
 and seemed secure enough for them : in this, however, 
 it appears we were mistaken ; for, on returning home 
 one night, the lid of the box had been detached, and 
 our glow-worms scattered on the carpet of the room, 
 which appeared powdered with diamonds. We must 
 acknowledge here our obligations to T. N. Parker, Esq. 
 of Sweeney Hall, through whose kindness we were 
 abundantly supplied with these insects for the pur- 
 pose of experiment, his servant having, by his desire, 
 collected them for us. 
 
 After the luminous sacs were detached from the 
 glow-worm, the light in the penultimate and ante- 
 penultimate rings was absorbed, with the exception of 
 the two luminous points on the anal sac. But by 
 proper pressure, the luminous spherulae might be de- 
 tached entire, and if not crushed or lacerated, would 
 continue to evolve light after their detachment from 
 the nidus in which they were imbedded. The luminous 
 globules are altogether independent of the inter- 
 
138 
 
 stitial substance throughout which they are diffused. 
 The fact of the gradual and not instantaneous evolu- 
 tion of the light, and the slow eclipse it suffers, seems 
 to refer the phenomenon to the volition of the insect 
 the intervention of a shade or contraction of the fibres to 
 which the luminous points are appended, would account 
 for the occasional occultation of the light. The lumin- 
 ous matter heated in a platinum spoon soon ceased to 
 evolve light : the surface of the platinum exhibited no 
 change, which it would have done had the luminous 
 matter contained phosphorus as one of its chemical 
 constituents. The light of the glow-worm seems 
 monochromatic, and appears incapable of further de- 
 composition by the prism. Viewed through a prism 
 of rock crystal turned on its axis, it presented a con- 
 fused nebulous image, unaccompanied with any chro- 
 matic tint. The photometer was affected by 2 or 3 
 on its near approach : this could only be inferred from 
 the apparent sinking of the liquid, calculating from 
 the moment of observation to that when it became 
 stationary. The luminous spherulae secreted from the 
 insect, when dry, were heated over a spirit lamp in 
 a platinum spoon : they became dark brown, and ex- 
 hibited a momentary flame, accompanied by slight 
 explosion, the flame, in colour, &c. had all the charac- 
 ters of hydrocarbonate ; and, by a delicate chemical 
 analysis, we have inferred it to be a gummo-albuminous 
 substance. Luminous spherulse detached from the 
 glow-worm were immersed in various media to ascer- 
 tain the period of continued luminosity. In a con- 
 centrated solution of pure caustic potassa, the light 
 was of a bluish tint, and seemed to undulate : the 
 period of duration was 60 seconds, and it continued 
 luminous for several minutes in tincture of iodine. In 
 sulphuric acid, of specific gravity 1.85, it was luminous 
 
139 
 
 for 30 seconds, and finally became black. In muri- 
 atic acid, specific gravity 1.12, the light remained for 
 24 seconds ; but in nitric acid, specific gravity 1.4-5, 
 it was only luminous 10 seconds. In a subsequent 
 experiment with sulphuric acid, specific gravity 1.85, 
 it remained luminous only 20 seconds. In alcohol, 
 specific gravity .812, the luminous appearance lasted 
 nearly two minutes; and in camphorated spirit of 
 wine, the same period ; in caustic ammonia it was lumi- 
 nous for 60 seconds ; in almond oil, and in water at 
 68 Fahrenheit, it continued luminous for some hours, 
 but was much less brilliant and beautiful than when 
 immersed in oil of olives. When put into olive oil, 
 at 11 o'clock, P.M., it continued to yield light through 
 the entire night, and several successive ones : when 
 reposing in this tranquil medium, and viewed at a 
 distance of about 10 feet, it twinkled like a fixed star ; 
 and although the eye steadily and tranquilly observed 
 the beautiful phenomenon, the light seemed subject 
 to occasional occultation, as if some axal revolution 
 had been super-induced ; and this curious eclipse 
 took place in periodic times but we could not de- 
 termine whether this phenomenon was dependent 
 on some property inherent in the light, or the result 
 of circumstances connected with the organ of vision, 
 or the air. Two glow-worms were shut up in a 
 dark box from Tuesday morning to Saturday night ; 
 yet, when then examined, were shining with great 
 brilliancy a fact which tends to prove that previous 
 exposure to light is not necessary to their luminosity, 
 and conjoined with the circumstance that during day 
 they penetrate to the roots of the grass, or moss, 
 would lead us to conclude, that solar light, on the 
 contrary, is injurious. When we breathed on a glow- 
 worm not previously shining, it became luminous 
 
140 
 
 probably from the accompanying increment of 
 temperature. The luminous matter continued to 
 shine, without alteration, in oxygen, nitrous oxide, 
 hydrogen, carbonic acid gas, cyanogen, olifiant gas, 
 and nitrous gas. When the insect was introduced 
 into pure oxygen, obtained from chlorate of potassa, 
 it did not seem more alert than before ; neither, in 
 repeated trials, was the luminosity perceptibly in- 
 creased. A glow-worm was not injured by being 
 introduced into a medium of hydrogen, nor did the 
 light undergo any change ; in carbonic acid it soon ex- 
 hibited signs of suffering, and expired in a bright 
 shroud of light it had no power to quench ; and this 
 light continued a considerable time after death. 
 
 Light does not seem to exercise any control over 
 the luminous matter when reposing in oil of olives ; 
 indeed, a luminous spherule exposed for an entire 
 day to the sun-beam shone at night as usual, or with 
 slight decrease of intensity. A luminous spherule 
 held in the warm hand, say 98 F., for two minutes, 
 continued luminous as in ordinary circumstances ; it 
 was then introduced into oil of olives, where it shone 
 uninterruptedly. In water heated to 108 F., the lu- 
 minous matter continued to shine for more than a 
 minute ; in a temperature of 114 F., it became extinct 
 in about 40 seconds ; in 126, it was lost in 30 se- 
 conds ; in a temperature of 94, it became faint in 60 
 seconds, though it continued to emit light much 
 longer ; in a temperature of 99 F., the light was more 
 brilliant and beautiful than in any other to which the 
 luminous matter was submitted, and it continued more 
 intense for about 60 seconds than under any other cir- 
 cumstances. A glow-worm, not luminous, was intro- 
 duced into water at 64.5 F., but no light was emitted 
 at a temperature of 88, light was faintly emitted at the 
 
141 
 
 last, or anal segment. In water of the temperature 
 ofllOF., it crawled about apparently disconcerted, 
 emitting two gleams, which were as suddenly 
 quenched ; but on being withdrawn, did not seem 
 inconvenienced. The insect died at a temperature 
 of 125 F. ; but being suffered to remain in water 
 at 116F., light was educed, became extinct in 90 
 seconds, and could not be rekindled by a temperature 
 of 156. The maximum of brilliancy obtains at a 
 temperature of 99, and is less intense and less per- 
 manent at temperatures superior to this grade; while 
 it may be inferred, that the temperature at which the 
 animal dies is also that at which the luminous matter 
 becomes particularly faint and evanescent. 
 
 When we plunged the luminous spherule in naphtha, 
 it was apparently immediately extinguished ; but this 
 seemed to be in consequence of the opacity of the 
 fluid, for when withdrawn it shone with undiminished 
 brightness. In solution of nitrate of silver, it shone 
 for some minutes with undecreasing light ; in ethereal 
 solution of gold, the luminous matter ceased to shine 
 in 65 seconds perhaps from a deposition of a film 
 of gold on the luminous spherule ; in concentrated 
 chromic acid, it remained luminous for several minutes 
 the acid being opaque, the duration was determined 
 by withdrawing the luminous matter from the liquid. 
 When we pressed the luminous matter into a flat disc, 
 the light appeared momentarily, as so many minute 
 scattered points, which became promptly evanescent 
 from the rupture of the capsule including it. Two 
 spherulae, with a portion of the interstitial matter, 
 were detached from a glow-worm : on being with- 
 drawn, they emitted light, but by a contractile power, 
 soon became imbedded amid this substance, from 
 which they could, however, be easily expressed, and 
 
.142 
 
 then shone as at first. This luminous matter appears, 
 from our experiments, to be of a spherical form, in- 
 cluded in a capsule perfectly diaphanous, or transpa- 
 rent, and which, when ruptured, unfolds the included 
 luminous matter in a liquid form, of the consistency 
 of cream. The luminous substance, there can be 
 little doubt, remains permanently luminous, and the 
 eclipse seems entirely occasioned by the spherulae in 
 which the luminous principle resides being withdrawn 
 by a contractile movement into the darker recesses of 
 the body of the insect, or being embosomed in the 
 interstitial substance. In one instance, when the 
 weather continued warm, the thermometer being 
 above 70, a glow-worm was accidentally crushed on 
 the floor, yet the light continued visible for three or 
 four days. We remember to have picked up a lampy- 
 ris noctiluca on the road from Ouchy to Lausanne, 
 which had been accidentally crushed, it was still 
 luminous. 
 
 We transferred a spherule into oil of olives in a 
 small glass capsule, and viewed it under the lens of 
 the microscope : it was opaque, of a bean shape, and 
 indented ; slightly chromatic at the ends when illumi- 
 nated by the reflector from below, being at one end 
 fringed with blue, and at the other reddish yellow 
 the matter being itself yellow, and environed by mi- 
 nute air bells. The luminous matter, divided by a 
 lancet, previously gilt with etherised gold, in order to 
 ascertain whether the hemispheres, thus separated, 
 would exhibit a luminous annulus surrounding the cen- 
 tral mass, did not discover such an effect, the luminous 
 matter was instantly dissipated, and hence seems subtile 
 and volatile ; for a portion of the same being instantly 
 transferred to muriate of platinum, remained lumin- 
 ous for 85 seconds, while the rest had ceased to be 
 
143 
 
 so in less than one -fourth of that period. This last 
 experiment proves, that though the luminous matter 
 may, when undisturbed in its capsule, remain even 
 for hours luminous, it is volatile and subtile when its 
 containing membrane is lacerated or destroyed. The 
 corrosive medium, even of a solution of nitromuriate 
 of platinum, could act only on the exterior wall, and 
 not affect the luminous matter imprisoned within its 
 confines. The yellow spherule, viewed by candle- 
 light in oil of olives, seems to be surrounded by a 
 cloudy atmosphere. When, from extreme cold, it had 
 ceased to be luminous in the dark, we held it im- 
 mersed in olive oil in a thin glass capsule in the warm 
 hand for five minutes, it then emitted a faint nebu- 
 lous light. This resembles the character of some of 
 those substances called solar phosphori ; for instance, 
 the chlorophane, of which we possess a specimen that, 
 held in the hand, evolves a fine green light. 
 
 We are wont to contemplate light as associated 
 with the production of combustion, or the offspring 
 of chemical action ; but here is a light under a pecu- 
 liar form, and independent of chemical conditions. 
 The following appear to us corollaries deducible from 
 the preceding detail of experiments : 
 
 I. Light, as connected with the glow-worm, is a 
 subtile evanescent material principle, perhaps con- 
 nected with a peculiar organised structure, circum- 
 fused round the vitellula of the ovum, or integrating 
 with it; unsupported by any chemical action, and 
 confinable by the transparent film, or capsule, which 
 imprisons it. 
 
 II. This light is permanent, and independent of any 
 power possessed by the insect over it, except so far 
 as it can withdraw the luminous matter from the 
 window, or transparent medium through which it is 
 
144 
 
 discerned, burying it in the interstitial matter, or 
 secreting it under an opaque shell. 
 
 III. The light is not connected with any of the 
 functions of animal life, as to its support or continu- 
 ance, such as the spiracula or breathing apparatus, 
 though it be so indirectly through the medium of the 
 circulation, and to which its variable intensity seems 
 attributable ; and even the extinction of life itself 
 does not extinguish the power and property of emit- 
 ting light. 
 
 IV. The luminous matter is not adherent exteriorly, 
 but included in a capsule, which preserves it from 
 extrinsic agency and contingency. 
 
 V. The light seems associated with peculiar organ- 
 isation, which elevated temperatures destroy, perhaps 
 by decomposition, but which low temperatures only 
 temporarily suspend. This very suspension, indeed, 
 by cold, and restoration by warmth and by a tempera- 
 ture equal to that of animal heat, goes far to prove a 
 peculiar function, inherent in the capsule, capable of 
 educing and sustaining the phenomenon. 
 
 Mr. Spence, in a communication to Mr. Loudon *, 
 states, that Dr. Carus of Dresden has made the dis- 
 covery, that there is a connection between the circu- 
 lation of the blood in the lampyris italica and the 
 luminous matter which occupies a great part of the 
 under side of the abdomen, and that the varying in- 
 tensity of the light is thus produced, the greater in- 
 tensity corresponding precisely with each pulsation of 
 that fluid, being from 44 to 54 times in a minute, when 
 the insect is not disturbed, but more rapidly and 
 irregularly when alarmed : we are informed that the 
 gleams of light in the fulgora lanternaria also vary 
 in intensity, and doubtless the cause is a similar one. 
 * Magazine of Natural History, No. XL p. 49. 
 
145 
 
 The entire phenomena of the exhibition of light in 
 luminous terrestrial animals seems to us to hinge oh 
 a thermo-electric principle. We have clearly proved 
 experimentally, that the light varies in intensity with 
 specific temperatures, and the variations of tempe- 
 rature connected with a languid or accelerated cir- 
 culation will account satisfactorily for the change of 
 intensity in the light. That in the ova, in all pro- 
 bability, depends on the* vitality of its punctum sa- 
 liens ; and while we have observed, constantly, the 
 intermission in its intensity in the living glow-worm, 
 which has been ascertained by Dr. Carus to have 
 a correspondence with the circulation, we never 
 observed any such varying intensity in the ova pro- 
 truded from the insect, or the luminous matter insu- 
 lated from the body of the animal ; circumstances 
 which seem to corroborate the view we have taken 
 of it. Various have been the opinions hazarded on 
 the part to which this singular phenomenon is subserv- 
 ient in the animal economy: in the common glow- 
 worm it has been supposed to be a hymeneal torch, 
 like the lamp that lighted Leander to Hero's bower. 
 To this opinion many objections may be opposed. 
 The male as well as the female glow-worms are lumi- 
 nous ; the one is winged and the other apterous : the 
 light is visible in autumn as well as in summer, when 
 it cannot be required : the scolopendra electrica, which 
 crawls on the earth, as well as the elater, fulgora, 
 &c. which soar in the air, are luminous in both sexes. 
 In fact, we are inclined to think it is a land' of ignis 
 fatuus, by which its prey is more readily secured, just 
 as the moth or the gnat, attracted by the flame of the 
 taper, rushes on self-destruction. The employment at 
 the moment, of its palpi, seems to corroborate the 
 conclusion. This seems in our opinion to be its chief 
 H 
 
146 
 
 purpose, and it would be difficult to conceive of one 
 better suited. That pest of an Italian clime, the mos- 
 quitoe, is supposed to be the prey of the lampyris 
 italica, and thus may the culex pipiens, tipula, &c. 
 become the food of winged and apterous luminous 
 insects. 
 
 " "Us only when the sun hath left his throne, 
 
 And evening's twilight darkens into night, 
 When gentler stars and planets shine alone, 
 
 That the small glow-worm sheds his topaz light, 
 And feeds his lamp in solitude's recess : 
 
 Even so do truth and wisdom loveliest sliine, 
 Even so doth virtue most benignly bless, 
 
 And love thus beams from some o'ershadowed shrine." 
 
 BOWRING. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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In I2mo. Price 7s, 
 
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 EXCURSIVE REMARKS ON THE VARIOUS OBJECTS OP INTEREST PRESENTED DURING 
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