accompaniment, and not an effect, of the phenomenon, and depends upon the excited state of the insect; and, lastly, that heat and electricity increase the exhibition of light, merely by operating like other stimuli upon the vital properties of the animal.

"In confirmation of these opinions, I may quote from high authority that the light of the glow-worm is not rendered more brilliant in oxygen, or in oxygenated muriatic gas, than in common air; and that it is not sensibly diminished in hydrogen gas.

“I shall terminate this paper by an enumeration of the several conclusions that are the result of the observations I have been able to make upon the phenomena of Animal Light. The property of emitting light is confined to animals of the simplest organisation, the greater number of which are inhabitants of the sea. The luminous property is not constant, but in general exists only at certain periods, and in particular states of the animal's body. The power of showing light resides in a peculiar substance or fluid, which is sometimes situated in a particular organ, and at others diffused throughout the animal's body. The light is differently regulated, when the luminous matter exists in the living body, and when it is abstracted from it. In the first case it is intermitting, or alternated with periods of darkness; is commonly produced or increased by a muscular effort, and is sometimes absolutely dependent upon the will of the animal. In the second case the luminous appearance is usually permanent until it becomes extinct, after which it may be restored by friction, concussion, and the application of warmth, which last cause operates on the luminous matter (while in the living body) only indirectly by exciting the animal. The luminous matter in all situations, so far from possessing phosphoric properties, is incombustible, and loses the quality of emitting light by being dried or much heated. The exhibition of light, however long it may be continued, causes no diminution of the bulk of the luminous matter. It does not require the presence of pure air, and is not extinguished by other gases.

"The luminous appearance of living animals is not exhausted by long continuance or frequent repetition, nor accumulated by exposure to natural light; it is therefore not dependent upon any foreign source, but inheres as a property in a peculiarly organised animal substance or fluid, and is regulated by the same laws which govern all the other functions of living beings. The light of the sea is always produced by living animals, and most frequently by the presence of the Medusa scintillans. When great numbers of this species approach the surface, they sometimes coalesce together, and cause that snowy or milky appearance of the sea which is so alarming to navigators. These animals, when congregated on the surface of the water, can produce a flash of light, somewhat like an electric corruscation. When the luminous Medusæ are very numerous, as frequently happens in confined bays, they form a considerable portion of

the mass of the sea, at which times they render the water heavier, and more nauseous to the taste; it is therefore advisable always to strain sea-water before it is drunk. The luminous property does not appear to have any connection with the economy of the animals that possess it, except in the flying insects, which by that means discover each other at night for the purpose of sexual congress."

A WHALE CAPTURED IN THE FIRTH OF FORTH.

A HUGE Whale has been cast ashore in the Firth of Forth, at Longniddry, some fifteen miles from Edinburgh, along the road to the south-eastern sea-coast. It was first seen blowing its waterspout thirty or forty feet high in the air, at a little distance from the shore. It drifted nearer with the strong tide, and finally got entangled amidst the rocks, from which it made desperate struggles to escape, but could not extricate itself. Several shots were fired at it, and at length it was exhausted by loss of blood. Two boys waded out, and stuck their pitchforks into its blubbery flanks. The whale continued to show signs of life long after the tide had left it, both by the blowholes and the tail. The nearest measurement that was made, we believe, gave the length from the tip or point of the mouth to the extremity of tail in a straight line as 78 ft. 9 in., and, following the curve of its side, as 80 ft. 9 in. Its girth round the thickest part is 33 ft.; the length of the fore fin is 11 ft.; and the breadth of tail 15 ft. 9 in. The measurement round the lower jaw, from eye to eye, is 39 ft.; the breadth from side to side of that jaw, 7 ft. 9 in.; and its length, in a straight line, is 17 ft. 9 in. The head is elongated and flattened, and the colour slate grey, with whitish tints beneath. The under jaw overshoots the upper jaw, but a great deal of the skin of the under jaw is pressed up, through the carcass lying so flat on the rocks. The eye is at the angle of the mouth, rather beyond the line and above it. It belongs to the species of Physalus antiquorum, or razor-back whales, one of which was found, in 1831, floating in Plymouth Sound, which was 102 ft. long and 75 ft. in circumference. There is the skeleton of another, caught near the Needles, Isle of Wight, in 1842, which is 75 ft. long; and in the Edinburgh National Museum of Science and Art is the skeleton of one found at North Berwick, 80 ft. long, with a head 23 ft. wide. The Longniddry whale, after lying aground seven or eight days, was at length sold by auction for 120/., to Mr. John Tait, oil merchant, of Kirkcaldy.

THE SHORE LARK.

A SHORE LARK was caught in a trap near Brighton on or about the 19th November, by a birdcatcher, and was about to be killed in cold blood, when Mr. Wykeham-Martin purchased it and saved its life. It would doubtless have been forthwith shot by

some one else if let fly again, and so he has since kept it in a cage, but this, much to his credit also, "3 ft. long by 18 in. wide." Very few have been noticed before. One at Sherringham, in Norfolk, in March, 1830; one in Lincolnshire, recorded by Mr. Eyton, of Eyton; two in Kent, mentioned by Mr. Yarrell; and one near Filey, in Yorkshire.

To this communication of the Rev. F. O. Morris to the Times, Mr. Robert Gray, Secretary to the Natural History Society of Glasgow, replied as follows:-"As the Rev. F. O. Morris, in his enumeration of places where this bird has been found in Great Britain, does not mention any Scottish locality in his recent letter, it may interest him and other naturalists to be made aware that in three instances at least specimens have been procured north of the Tweed-viz., in East Lothian, Fifeshire, and Aberdeenshire. The first recorded examples of the Shore Lark in any part of Scotland were procured in the Tyne estuary, near the residence of the Earl of Haddington, on the 10th of January, 1859, and were shown to myself shortly after their capture by the late Dr. Nelson, of Pitcox, near Dunbar. He had three specimens, all of which were obtained in the same place, and a notice of one of these appeared in the proceedings of the Royal Physical Society of Edinburgh for that year. Besides these examples, two were caught near St. Andrew's in the winter of 1865, and two others, which I have seen, were obtained near Aberdeen a few months ago.

"In the case of such birds as the Shore Lark there is not, I imagine, much risk of their meeting with so inhospitable a reception as Mr. Morris would seem to suppose all birds of their kind experience on landing on our shores. It would require a practised eye even to distinguish them when found mixing, as they generally do, with other birds. Ornithologists have yet much to learn regarding the distribution of species even in such narrow limits as the British Islands afford, and I would therefore be disposed not to interfere in the meantime with bird collectors, whose object in procuring specimens may be to widen our information on this point, by proving the presence of the birds at particular seasons, which, unfortunately, can only be done by the production of the specimens themselves.

66

Having of late years directed my attention almost constantly to the occurrence of what are usually called rare birds in this country, and having personally visited nearly every collection, public and private, throughout Scotland, I have had evidence enough before me to show that many of these have a much wider range of flight than has been hitherto recorded, and that until more is known of the birds of Scotland, no definite idea can be entertained of the comparative numbers of the rarer species that have occurred within British limits."

N

OYSTER AND MUSSEL FISHERIES OF FRANCE.

MR. CHOLMONDELEY PENNELL, Inspector of Oyster Fisheries, having visited and inspected the principal French Oyster and Mussel Fisheries, in pursuance of instructions from the Board of Trade, has reported thereon.

Having completed his Report of what he saw and heard among the Oyster and Mussel Fisheries of France, Mr. Pennell adds some remarks upon the lessons we may learn from a comparison of the French system with our own. The Government in both countries recognises the necessity of protecting natural Oysterbeds from an exhaustive demand; but in England we are in favour of making it the interest of the fishermen to do that for themselves which in France the Government proposes to do for them. Mr. Pennell is of opinion, however, that in the instance of some of our fisheries, too extensive to be advantageously made the subject of Parliamentary grants to companies, corporations, or individuals, a local committee somewhat analogous to the annual commission of the French, but including a larger proportion of the representatives of the fishing interest, might well be established under the surveillance of the Government. The French principle of dividing the coast into districts appears to be an excellent one, inasmuch as it aims at giving each man in the district an interest in the prosperity of the fisheries, and prevents a sudden descent of large numbers of men from distant parts to clean out the oysters where there happens to be a good fall of spat, impoverishing the district as well as depriving the local dredgermen of that which is, after all, often the result of their own labour; but the districts are too large, and the interest of each person too small. It is a great grievance with the dredgermen all round our coasts that they do the principal part of the cultivating, and others come in, after recklessly dredging out and exhausting their own beds, and carry off the lion's share of the harvest, taking away every oyster, big or little, that they ean dredge. Mr. Pennell is also of opinion that the natural system of oyster cultivation on foreshores and banks partially submerged, as pursued at Arcachon, is well worthy of trial on suitable spots on the British coasts. He believes that the English system of artificial culture, by means of tanks entirely excluded from the action of the tide, is in all respects a great improvement upon the French system of tile collectors and parcs on the foreshore. The tanks, or salt-water ponds, have been established in various parts of England, and have succeeded in every case in which the experiment has been fairly tried. Hurdles, fascines, tiles, and cultch have all been used with great success in these tanks. The mode of granting coneessions in France is simpler and cheaper than ours, but our system of a sifting public inquiry on the spot is probably more advantageous in the end to all parties, and occupies much less time than that of France. Applicants in Great Britain often incur expense by the employment of expensive and unnecessary

legal machinery. The system of temporary local depôts, by which fishermen and dredgermen are enabled economically and conveniently to warehouse their produce or bait until required, is one which might be adopted in this country with great advantage, power being vested in the Board of Trade to authorise such concessions, under proper regulations, in cases where they deem it expedient.

The Mussel culture of France has been for many years an established success, but there are very few spots round our shores on which the Board of Trade, as guardians of public rights of navigation and anchorage, would probably permit of the construction of such chevaux-de-frise as those, for example, at Aiguillon, or of the artificial creation of submerged rocks, like the stone écluses of the Ile de Ré. Moreover, the English method of mussel culture is both simpler and less expensive, and the mussels usually supplied for consumption at Billingsgate and other large markets are cheaper, larger, and better fattened. Billingsgate, for example, draws its principal supplies of English mussels from Essex. These are purchased from Southend, Leigh, South Lynn, the coast of Devon, &c., and are simply laid down on the mud of the foreshore for seven or eight months, usually from January or February to August, when they are fit for market. During May, June, and July they are unmarketable, not having recovered from the effects of spawning. Mr. Pennell states the price of the English mussels at Billingsgate at 1s. 6d. per 42lb., or considerably less than half the price of the Aiguillon mussels, the Dutch and Belgian mussels ranging about one-sixth lower than the English. He concludes his report with a cordial acknowledgment of the courtesy and assistance received by him from all the officers of the French Government with whom his examination of the French fisheries brought him into contact.-Times.

BOTANY.

PLANTS INFECTED WITH A PARASITIC FUNGUS.

MISS BECKER has exhibited to the British Association specimens of the common red Campion, Lychnis diurna, infested with a parasitic fungus allied to the "smut" in wheat, which develops its fructification in the anthers of the flower. The campion in its ordinary healthy state has flowers bearing stamens only or pistils only; but about half the plants infested with the parasitic fungus bear flowers with both stamen and pistil in the same flower. Miss Becker has never observed bisexual flowers on healthy plants, and attributed its occurrence in the flower she produced to the presence of this parasitic fungus. She had submitted a few of the flowers to Mr. Darwin, and he had suggested that the pollen being destroyed at an early period, the pistil was developed in compensation. But though this explanation appeared probable at first sight, she did not think the facts sus