84 
ELATER. 
colour of this animal is an uniform brown, and it 
is a native of many parts of India and Africa. 
The Elater oculatus is also a large species, 
though not equal to the preceding: it is a native 
of many parts both of North and South-America, 
and is of a dark brown or blackish colour, w ith 
the thorax marked on each side by a very large, 
oval, velvet-black spot, surrounded by a white 
margin. 
A still more remarkable insect is the Elater 
noctilucusy called in South-America, where it is 
not uncommon, bj^ the title of Cociijas. It is 
about an inch and half long, and of a brown 
colour, with the thorax marked on each side by a 
smooth, yellow, semitransparent spot: these spots, 
like those on the abdomen of the Glow-Worm, are 
highly luminous, dilfusing, during the night, so 
brilliant a phosphoric splendor, that a person may 
with great ease read the smallest print by the insect’s 
light, if held between the fingers and moved along the 
lines: but if eight or ten be put into a clear phial, 
they will afford a light equal to that of a common 
candle. It is said that the inhabitants of His- 
paniola, &c. before the first arrival of the Spaniards, 
made use of no other light than these insects; and 
we are informed by Mouffet, that when Sir Thomas 
Cavendish and Sir Robert Dudley, son to the Earl 
of Leicester, first landed in the West-Indies, and 
saw, the same evening, an infinite number of 
moving lights in the woods, they supposed that 
the Spaniards were advanced upon them unawares, 
and immediately betook themselves to tiieir sliips* 
