162 INSECTS ABllOAU. 



" Whether any light would appear pervading the alxlomfni if 

 the segments were stretched, I cannot positively say, for I have 

 not in my journal any note on this point. I think not, however, 

 for in my repeated handlings of these insects and experiments 

 on their abdomens, I could scarcely have avoided extending the 

 segments, even unintentionally ; but I am quite certain I never 

 saw, any light except in the one ventral and the two thoracic 

 spots. If one be trodden on, a mass of mixed light remains for 

 some minutes among the fragments." 



" The story told by Peter Martyr of these Elaters having been 

 hunted for, to eat the mosquitos, is sufficiently amusing ; of 

 course it is not right to contradict a statement because one has 

 never verified it, but I may be permitted to observe that I 

 utterly disbelieve it. That they might afford a substitute for 

 candles in performing household operations that required no 

 great exactness is certainly true, provided they were constantly 

 carried in the fingers; but if put under a glass, or allowed 

 liberty in a room, as I have abundantly proved, they very 

 quickly conceal their light. I have found, too, that one kept 

 beneath a glass would display very little light the next evening, 

 even rmder the excitement of being handled, and on the follow- 

 ing night would be irrecoverably dark ; this may have resulted 

 from the lack of food, or of exercise ; not, I think, from the lack 

 of air or of moisture. 



" Peter Martyr asserts that the natives of His2:)aniola, at the 

 time of the discovery, were in the habit of tying one of these 

 glow-flies to each of their great toes when they journeyed by 

 night through the woods ; a thing not at all improbable. The 

 two insects would throw a considerable light around the tra- 

 veller's steps, and, if they should withhold their luminosity, 

 might easily be replaced by others freshly caught. On this 

 custom Southey, in the beautiful poem already quoted, has 

 founded a pretty incident. When Coatel was guiding Madoc 

 through the cavern — 



' She beckoned, and descended, and drew out 

 From underneath her vest, a cage, or net 

 It rather might be called, so fine the twigs 

 Which knit it, where, confined, two fire-flies gave 

 Their lustre.' 



Madoc, 11, xvii." 



