Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. (Vol. 13:301-314, 1938). Since that time we have learned much about the biochemistry and physiology of firefly luminescence. The firefly lantern has even become a tool for the assay of the major energy compound of cells, ATP. The study of flash communication in many firefly species has revealed that timing relations between the flashes provide the necessary information in this system for sexual and species selection. Nowhere is the ability to control the timing of flashes more strongly exhibited than in the synchronously flashing fireflies of Southeast Asia. These fireflies provide the ultimate test of our biochemical, physiological and behavioral theories of firefly flash communication. The University of Chicago Press SYNCHRONOUS RHYTHMIC FLASHING OF FIREFLIES. II. JOHN BUCKLaboratory of Physical Biology, National Institutes of HealJh, Bethesda, Maryland 20892 USA ABSTRACT Synchronizedflashing by males of some firefly species involves a capacity for visually coordinated, rhythmically coincident, inter-individual behavior that is apparently unique in the animal kingdom exceptfor afew other arthropods andfor man. This paper reviews (1) diverse communicative interactions that have evolvedfrom elementary photic signals, (2) physiological mechanisms of synchronism, and (3) theories about its biological meaning. Work of the past 20 years shows that flash synchrony is widespread geographically and taxonomically, appears in an astonishing range of spectacular display types, utilizes several neuralflash-control mechanisms and is pervasively but enigmatically involved in courtship. No proposedfunction for synchrony has been fully established but theory and physiology concur in indicating that synchrony aids male orientation toward the female, female recognition of male flashing or both. Increased mate choice for the female is one likely ultimate benefit.

A rapid nonstaining (KOH) method for the determination of the Gram reactions of bacteria is described, and its application to marine isolates is discussed. All gram-positive and gram-negative results obtained by Gram staining were confirmed by the KOH method. Gram-variable bacteria produced equivocal results.

In Thailand, male Pteroptyx malaccae fireflies, congregated in trees, flash in rhythmic synchrony with a period of about 560 +/- 6 msec (at 28 degrees C). Photometric and cinematographic records indicate that the range of flash coincidence is of the order of +/- 20 msec. This interval is considerably shorter than the minimum eye-lantern response latency and suggests that the Pteroptyx synchrony is regulated by central nervous feedback from preceding activity cycles, as in the human "sense of rhythm," rather than by direct contemporaneous response to the flashes of other individuals. Observations on the development of synchrony among Thai fireflies indoors, the results of experiments on phase-shifting in the American Photinus pyralis and comparisons with synchronization between crickets and between human beings are compatible with the suggestion.

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