One hundred years ago M. de Merejkowski, in a recent
lecture delivered in Paris, reported by Wednes- day's Times, appears to have shown that the crustaceans care for light as light, much as we do, but do not show more preference for one colour than another, except so far as one colour contains more light than another. When the ex- perimenter admitted a ray of light to the vessel in which they were, the creatures all crowded round it. When he admitted two rays separately, they always prefer- red the brighter ray, and the white light to any other colour. Thus they appear to be very unlike the ants of which Sir John Lubbock has shown that they greatly prefer the red to the violet ray, not because they like the light — they prefer the darkness — but because they are less sensitive to the red rays than to the violet and ultra-violet rays. The red rays, apparently, affect the ants as something more like darkness than the violet or ultra-violet rays. The crustaceans, on the contrary, seem drawn to the light not away from it, but see the light with much the same eyes as we do. What are called the chemical rays do not affect the crustaceans at all, while they affect the ants very painfully.
Spectator, 28 January 1882
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