Carries A Torch

Scientists have recently ir.rodueed a novel ty in the flnny wjr;d in the shape of the linophryne lucifer, but it is a deal easier to cali it b3 its every day name- the torchfish. He is a deep sea fish, carrying on his nose an org-an which he can illuminate with a phosphorescent light or extinguish it at pleasure. He does i not use his lantern to guide him on his pathless course in the darkdepths of ocean or enable him to look around him, but when meal time comes he lights up to attract smaller fishes, which, mistakin the lanteru for a phosphorescent insect, dart straight for it, only to find their way into the cap-'.cious jaws of liaophryne lucifer. The mode In which the lantern is lighted and extinguished is not yet cloarly understood. Nikola Tesla, te eminent electrician, is of the opinión that if such a fish exists, and if it has tho attribut!s credited to it, it is very stranje that neither Lord Rayleight nor Professor S. P. Lang'ey had made any mention of it in their researches. Mr. Tesia is b'so of the opinión that If the phosphorescent does exist it is not of an eectrical origen. G. Brown Geode, assistaul secretary of the Scnitbsonian institntion, writes of the toreli-üsh. "It is not positively known that the organ on the nasal filament of linophryne is luminous, although it appears probable. The idea that the fish has t3 power of illuminating it at pleasure is, so far as I know, purely conjectural, the idea havinjr been sugg-estod by Dr. Gunther, of the British museum. I think no one has seriously supposed that the phosphorescence is due to an íeotríiíal