Abstract
THE question of the influence of light upon organisms must have appealed to the inquiring mind ever since a moth was seen to fly into a candle or a plant was observed to bend towards the sun. The closing of many flowers at night coinciding with the opening of others would have also been arresting movements to many unknown observers. But how subtle the influence of light may be has only comparatively recently been appreciated. The bending of plants towards the sun may readily be explicable on the ground of the importance of light in the preparation of the plant-food, but the hydroid zoophytes were discovered to possess the same property of bending towards the source of light, although they do not find thereby any known assistance to their maintenance. Larvae of many diverse marine animals are also strongly attracted by light, and these, again, make no use of it so far as is known. Many animals, indeed, prefer rays of a particular region. As Lord Avebury showed years ago, the common Daphnia, if covered by a spectrum, aggregates under the green and yellow rays; ants, on the other hand, aggregate chiefly under the red and green rays, showing a special avoidance of violet and ultra-violet rays. Such varied and definite susceptibility seems quite unintelligible unless it is connected in some way with well-being, and no one has as yet shown any such correlation. The problems, then, of the meaning of the attraction or repulsion which light exerts are evidently very diverse, and the work of Mr. Mast is devoted to their analysis and consideration.
Light and the Behaviour of Organisms.
By Prof. S. O. Mast. Pp. xi + 410. (New York: J. Wiley and Sons; London: Chapman and Hall, Ltd., 1911.)
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
G., F. Light and the Behaviour of Organisms . Nature 87, 209 (1911). https://doi.org/10.1038/087209a0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/087209a0