Another curious group of the sea-squirts is that known by the name of the _Pyrosomæ_, a name literally meaning ‘fiery-bodies.’ These latter forms exist as connected masses of sea-squirts aggregated together, so as to form a hollow cylinder or tube, closed at one end; this animal-colony swimming on the surface of the sea, by the admission and forcible ejection of water from the interior of the tube. Such a means of locomotion reminds us of a veritable hydraulic engine, and is decidedly a useful modification of the common sea-squirt’s habit. The pyrosomas exhibit a strange phosphorescent light, seen also in such animals as the jelly-fishes. These luminous sea-squirts when seen in shoals, have well been described as ‘miniature pillars of fire, gleaming out of the dark sea, with an ever-waning, ever-brightening, soft, bluish light, as far as the eye could reach on every side.’ Side by side with this description from the pen of a distinguished naturalist, may be placed the poetic realisation of a similar scene by Sir Walter Scott, who in the _Lord of the Isles_ has happily noted the luminosity of the sea when, Awaked before the rushing prow The mimic fires of ocean glow, Those lightnings of the wave; Wild sparkles crest the broken tides, And flashing round the vessel’s sides, With elfish lustre lave; While far behind, their livid light To the dark billows of the night A gloomy splendour gave. THE POINT OF HONOUR. A STORY OF THE PAST. Shortly after Waterloo had been fought, one of our English regiments (which had taken a distinguished part in that great victory) stationed in a Mediterranean garrison, gained an unenviable notoriety there by a sudden mania for duelling that broke out amongst its officers, and which threatened to become so chronic in its character as seriously to interfere with the discipline of the corps. Quarrels were literally ‘made to order’ at mess-time for the most trifling affairs, and scarcely a day passed without a hostile meeting taking place, which the colonel—a weak-minded man—expressed himself powerless to prevent. Indeed he had already been sent to ‘Coventry’ by his subordinates, which, as our readers doubtless know, is a kind of social excommunication that, when acted upon in an English regiment, generally ends in the retirement from the corps of the individual on whom it falls. It was so in this instance, for the colonel saw that the vendetta-like conduct of his officers towards him was gradually divesting him of all authority in the eyes of his men; and as he had none but his social inferiors to whom he could turn for counsel and advice, he was compelled to relinquish his command and return to England. On arrival in this country he lost no time in proceeding to the Horse Guards, where he sought and gained an interview with the Duke of Wellington, to whom he gave a graphic account of the state of affairs which existed in the regiment he had just left.