t68 Journal of Travel and Natural History 



in thousands, and the wonderful part of the sight is, that while many of the 

 rank and file evidently wander only according to their individual will, there are 

 others, and these the majority, which keep perfect time and sway in their flash- 

 ings one with another. For perhaps twenty yards you see every light (of this 

 second set of lights) evenly and slowly flying in one direction ; then all at once 

 in a moment every light will vanish ; in the next moment every light flashes forth 

 again, and progresses in another direction. It is impossible to resist the conviction 

 that all areactingin harmonyand conjunction with each other, and that the impulse 

 of forward progression, and then of a momentary obscuration of light, and then 

 again of a brilliant simultaneous flash and another onward movement at another 

 angle, is felt by each individual, and directed by one the leader of the brilliant well- 

 drilled band. The sight (when one remembers that these are insects, and not 

 birds or beasts) is quite startling, so complete is the precision of united action, 

 and so continuous — going on, for anything I know, all the evening or all night 

 long. I can call to mind no parallel to it, not even an actual parallel in birds 

 or fishes." 



To which he appends a recent note ; 



"As similar scenes must have been observed by any entomologist who had 

 ever spent a few days in the Organ mountains, I applied to my friend Mr Alex- 

 ander Fry, who in knowledge of the Coleoptera of the southern region of the 

 Brazils, and in the practical experience of their habits, which he had gained by 

 careful examination of them during several years' residence in Rio Janeiro, is 

 among European entomologists facile princeps ; and he entirely corroborated 

 the obsei"vation noted above. He replied : ' I can confirm your observation 

 that the fire-flies of the genus Aspisosoma of Castleneau flit at night in great 

 numbers over low-lying damp fields, chiefly under water, emitting light by short 

 flashes, at intervals of three or four seconds, the' majority keeping time -with each 

 other as if in ohedieuce to the Imton of a teader.''" 



May not the intermittance be due to the action of the wings in 

 flight, and its regularity to their all taking the same space of time to 

 open and shut them (most insects of the same species being uniform 

 in size), and may not its concurrence in action be due to a flight of 

 them having all started at the same time; and may not their all 

 having started at the same time be due to some common cause, 

 whether a general alarm or a general invitation, as from some female 

 having come within liail. 



One other instance of intelligent and inquiring observation, and 

 we shall pass on to less speculative matters : 



" I think I never mentioned to you one of the interesting sights that we 

 always took care to inspect whenever we ascended the aqueduct road from 

 Botofogo. There was near the road-side a large tree standing by itself in the 

 sunshine, towards the top of it a branch had been torn off liy the wind, and the 

 wound gave forth a stream of dark resinous sap which ran nearly to llie ground ; 

 this resinous sap was a very favourite haunt of Lepidoptcra and Coleoptera, and 



