GLOW-WORM. 79 - 
produced under the superintendance of the Nymphs 
of Fire. 
" You with light gas the lamps nocturnal feed 
That dance and glimmer o’er the marshy mead} 
Shine round Calendula at twilight hours. 
And tip with silver all her saffron flowers; 
Warm on her mossy couch the radiant worm. 
Guard from cold dews her love-illumin’d form. 
From leaf to leaf conduct the virgin light. 
Star of the earth, and diamond of the night!” 
It is certain that in some species of this genus 
the male as well as the female is luminous, as in 
the Lampyns Italica, which seems to be a native 
of our own island also, though less common here 
than in the warmer parts of Europe. Aldrovandus 
describes the winged Glow-Worm as having its 
wing-shells of a dusky colour, and at the end of 
the body two brilliant fiery spots like the flame of 
sulphur. 
In the Philosophical Transactions for the year 
i684 we find a paper by a Mr. AValler, describing 
the English flying glow-worm as of a dark colour, 
with the tail part very luminous: he maintains 
that both male and female of this species are 
winged, and that the female is larger than the 
male: the light of this insect was very vivid, so as 
to be plainly perceived even when a candle was 
in the room. Mr. Waller observed this sj^ecies at 
Northaw in Hertfordshire. From the figure given 
by this writer it appears to be about half an inch 
in length, which is much smaller than the common 
female glow-worm. 
