the ordinary ventral setæ; instead of a bundle of about four setæ there is sometimes only a single seta. This worm appears to be luminous at night, whence the name given to it by Dugès."—Beddard, 'Monograph of Oligochaeta (1895),' p. 472. It is now known as Pontodrilus phosphoreus (Dugès).
In 1843, when the British Association met at Cork, specimens of an annelid were exhibited by Dr. Allman, which he had discovered in the bogs of the south of Ireland, and which was the cause of a luminous appearance. When irritated the worm gave out a phosphorescent light, which is said to have been much increased by exposing the creature to the vapour of alcohol. The light was of that peculiar soft greenish hue which is characteristic of the phosphorescence usually observed in living animals, and familiar to most readers in connection with the Glowworm. It was said to be closely allied to the Earthworm. Another gentleman was reported to have observed the same pecularity in some annelids which exist in the bogs of Connaught. I have been unable to find any recent reference to or confirmation of these curious observations, and this though I have examined many hundreds of specimens of terrestrial and aquatic worms from different parts of Ireland, have made special enquiries, and even visited Ireland myself in 1896 purposely to examine the annelid fauna for the Royal Irish Academy. Ten years later Mr. Henry Cox exhibited an Earthworm which was phosphorescent at a meeting of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Liverpool, held November 14th, 1853.[1]
While few records of a reliable nature respecting the observation of luminous worms in Britain are available, a good deal has been done by our continental fellow-workers. Vejdovsky, who wrote a very valuable work on the various species of annelids in 1884, entitled 'System und Morphologie der Oligochæten,' gives us some results of his personal experience, which I believe have never been placed before the English reader. He says that he had the good fortune once to observe an interesting case of
- ↑ See 'Proceedings,' No. viii., p. 57. In 1893 I received news of a phosphorescent Worm having been found in London, but it proved on examination to be not a Worm at all. In fact, many of the instances of so-called phosphorescence in worms may be traced to the popular habit of calling centipedes and all other lowly wriggling creatures by this comprehensive name.
