The Philosophical magazine; a journal of theoretical, experimental and applied physics . of a round bag and turning it into thewater; but extends rather in a longitudinal direction, givingsomewhat the effect of a longitudinal cleft; and from one endof this cleft is observed to protrude a lengthened filamentousbody, which seems to be a sort of tentaculum, and during thelife of the animal is seen to be in almost constant motion. I have endeavoured in vain toobtain a more accurate view ofthis appendage; but the state ofconstant motion it is in, togetherwith the extreme minuteness anddelicacy of t
The Philosophical magazine; a journal of theoretical, experimental and applied physics . of a round bag and turning it into thewater; but extends rather in a longitudinal direction, givingsomewhat the effect of a longitudinal cleft; and from one endof this cleft is observed to protrude a lengthened filamentousbody, which seems to be a sort of tentaculum, and during thelife of the animal is seen to be in almost constant motion. I have endeavoured in vain toobtain a more accurate view ofthis appendage; but the state ofconstant motion it is in, togetherwith the extreme minuteness anddelicacy of the whole animal, havehitherto rendered my efforts un-availing. That it is occasionallyemployed as an organ of locomo-tion there can be no question, andsome of the movements executedby it have appeared to me verysurprising. Thus I have wit-nessed it extended above the animal,and then usedasafulcrum, ., c , • -m .1 , , , „ Magnified view of the Noctiluca as it were, to draw the body of the mmaris. NatUral size.^th part animal upwards towards itself; yet of an inch in Experiments on the Noctiluca miliaris. 409 by what power so fine and hair-like a member can be made tooppose such resistance to the water, as that the comparativelylarge globular mass composing the body of the animal shouldbe drawn to it, rather than that it should pass to the globe,J am unable to determine with precision, and consequentlyrefrain from offering a merely conjectural opinion. The method of examination which I have found to be themost convenient, and from which the foregoing description istaken, is to pour a small quantity of the luminous water intoa watch-glass and then submit it to the microscope, by whichmeans the little animals still remain floating in the water, andtheir movements, under the eye of the observer, are in no wayinterfered with. Examined in this manner, there is nothingto be discovered to indicate any special luminous organ, orthe precise part of the animal devoted to
Size: 1337px × 1869px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookdec, bookpublisherlondontaylorfrancisetc, booksubjectphysics
