red and fifty millions of
these animalcules would have abundant room in a tumbler of water!"

But besides furnishing food to the whale, and, no doubt, to many other
of the inhabitants of the deep, those medusae are the cause of the
phosphorescent light that sometimes glows on the ocean with resplendent
brilliancy. We see this light oftentimes on our own coasts. It is
usually of a pale bluish-white colour, more or less intense, apparently,
according to the condition of the creatures by which it is emitted. It
can only be seen at night. We have seen it on the west coast of
Scotland, so bright that the steamer in which we sailed left behind her
what appeared to be a broad highway of liquid fire.

At times it requires vigorous motion, such as takes place when an oar is
dipped, a stone thrown, or paddle-wheels dashed into the water; but at
other times, the mere motion of the ocean swell, even in calm weather,
is sufficient to stir up the lambent light and cause the crest of every
undulation to glitter as if tipped with burnished silver. In such
circumstances we have seen the ends of the oars of a boat silvered with
it when lifted out of the wave, and the drops which fell from them
before being redipped resembled the most beautiful diamonds.

Mr P.H. Gosse, in his interesting work, "The Ocean," gives the
following account of this luminosity of the sea, as witnessed by himself
on one occasion:

"In a voyage to the Gulf of Mexico, I saw the water in those seas more
splendidly luminous than I had ever observed before. It was indeed a
magnificent sight, to stand on the fore-part of the vessel and watch her
breasting the waves. The mass of water rolled from her bows as white as
milk, studded with those innumerable sparkles of blue light. The
nebulosity instantly separated into small masses, curdled like clouds of
marbles, leaving the water between of its own clear blackness; the
clouds soon subsided, but the sparks remained. Sometimes one of these
points, of greater size and brilliancy than the rest, suddenly burst
into a small cloud of superior whiteness to the mass, and be then lost
in it. The curdling of the milky appearance into clouds and masses, and
its quick subsidence, were what I had never before observed elsewhere."

Many scientific travellers have carefully examined this subject, and we
believe that all agree in referring this beautiful appearance to the
medusae. One gentleman drew a bucketful of water fr