34 TIMES AND SEASONS. 



the naturalist, so do those animal flames with which it is 

 illuminated, — 



" Stars of the earth, and diamonds of the night." 



Mr Kirby, the most accomplished of entomologists, 

 speaks in rapturous terms of our own homely little glow- 

 worm. " If,'' says he, " living, like me, in a district where 

 it is rarely met with, the first time you saw this insect 

 chanced to be, as it was in my case, one of those delight- 

 ful evenings which an English summer seldom yields, 

 when not a breeze disturbs the balmy air, and * every 

 sense is joy,' and hundreds of these radiant worms, stud- 

 ding their mossy couch with wild effulgence, were pre- 

 sented to your wondering eye in the course of a quarter 

 of a mile, — you could not help associating with the name 

 of glow-worm the most pleasing recollections." * 



It is, however, in America that these " diamonds of the 

 night" are observed to advantage. In Canada I have 

 seen the whole air, for a few yards above the surface of a 

 large field, completely filled with fire-flies on the wing, 

 thicker than stars on a winter's night. The light is 

 redder, more candle-like, than that of our glow-worm, and, 

 being in each individual alternately emitted and concealed, 

 and each of the million tiny flames performing its part in 

 mazy aerial dance, the spectacle was singularly beautiful. 



A sight in every respect similar, though doubtless de- 

 pendent on a different species, occurred to me in ascend- 

 ing the river Alabama from the Gulf of Mexico. As the 

 steamer passed booming along under the shadow of night, 



* Introduction to Entomology. Letter xxv. 



