UNITED STATES. 155 
much encouragement here, as everywhere else in a country where 
the mental cultivation of the mass of the people is justly held of 
paramount importance to the well-being of the common-wealth. 
I accompanied Dr. Darlington to his residence, at that time 
about half a mile from the town, into which he has since removed. 
At the gate grew a gigantic specimen of the Osage Orange (Ma- 
clura aurantiaca), then laden with its yet unripe fruit, which here 
comes to perfection. Toward dusk we strolled over his little farm 
of about sixty acres, partly fenced in with quickset hedges as in 
England, but formed of the Washington Thorn (Crataegus cordata), 
which well supplies the place of our English White-Thorn, making 
as handsome and durable enclosures. Here I saw, for the first 
time in the States, a few Fire-flies or “lightning bugs” (Lampyris), 
of which there are several kinds, that, like those of the West 
Indies, emit their light in momentary gleams or flashes, usually of 
a greenish or bluish white; but in the present case the light so 
exactly counterfeited in its redness the sparks from burning 
wood, that I could almost imagine myself a little nervous, were I 
to see these brilliant creatures flitting about any thing so in- 
flammable as a barrel of gunpowder. Having delivered my cre- 
dentials, I returned on the 6th to Philadelphia for a day or two. 
Whilst shifting a few plants this evening after dark I several 
times noticed what I at first took for a large spider running over 
the floor, but subsequently perceived it to be a species of Cermatia, 
a genus of Myriapodes allied to Scolopendra, and the first of the 
kind I had seen alive. It ran with such extreme rapidity as to 
baffle my attempts to secure it: a task the more difficult as I did 
not wish to run the risk of being bitten by directly seizing on an 
animal that, to judge from the will and ability of his near relatives, 
the Scolopendras, to resent an infraction of their right to freedom, 
might be disposed to act in a similar way upon emergency. A 
more familiar acquaintance with the creature soon taught me, 
However, that I had nothing to fear from its powers of annoyance 
or defence: I subsequently noticed it repeatedly in the south, 
where it may be often seen hurrying rapidly across the table, 
books, or person of the observer. The houses in this city and in 
