410 LUMINOUS INSECTS. 



sufficient number of Cucuij, the beetle-hunter returns 

 home and lets them fly loose in the house, where they 

 diligently seek the gnats about the beds and the faces of 

 those asleep, and devour them ^. — These insects are also 

 applied to purposes of decoration. On certain festival 

 days in the month of June, they are collected in great 

 numbers, and tied all over the garments of the young 

 people, who gallop through the streets on horses simi- 

 larly ornamented, producing on a dark evening the efl'ect 

 of a large moving body, of light. On such occasions 

 the lover displays his gallantry by decking his mistress 

 with these living gems^. And according to P. Mar tire, 

 " many wanton wilde fellowes" rub their faces with the 

 flesh of a killed Cucuius, as boys with us use phosphorus, 

 " with purpose to meet their neighbours with a flaming 

 countenance," and derive amusement from their fright. 



Besides Elater noctilucus, E. ignitus and several others 

 of the same genus are luminous. Not fewer than twelve 

 species of this family are described by Illiger in the Berlin 

 Naturalist Society's Magazine'^, 



The brilliant nocturnal spectacle presented by these 

 insects to the inhabitants of the countries where they 

 abound cannot be better described than in the language 

 of the poet above referred to, who has thus related its 

 first effect upon the British visitors of the new world : 



" Sorrowing we beheld 



The night come on ; but soon did night display 

 More wonders than it voil'd : iununierous tribes 

 From the wood-cover swarm'd, and darkness made 



^ P. Martirc, tJn. siipr. 



^ Walton's Present State of the Spanish Colonics, i. 128. 



' lahrgaiig, i. 111. 



