410 LUMINOUS INSECTS. 



out needing fresh supplies of oil or the application of 

 the snuffers. 



Of the insects thus singularly provided, the common 

 glow-worm {Lampyris noctiluca) is the most familiar 

 instance. Who that has ever enjoyed the luxury of a 

 summer evening's walk in the country, in the southern 

 parts of our island, but has viewed with admiration 

 these '• stars of the earth and diamonds of the night?" 

 And if, 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 delightful 

 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, studding 

 their mossy couch with mild effulgence, were presented 

 to your wondering eye in the course of a charter of a 

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

 glow-worm the most pleasing recollections. No won- 

 der that an insect, which chiefly exhibits itself on oc- 

 casions so interesting, and whose economy is so re- 

 markable, should have afforded exquisite images and 

 illustrations to those poets who have cultivated Natu- 

 ral History. 



If you take one of these glow-worms home with you 

 for examination, you will find that in shape it some- 

 what resembles a caterpillar, only that it is much more 

 depressed ; and you will observe that the light pro- 

 ceeds from a pale-coloured patch that terminates the 

 underside of the abdomen. It is not, however, the 

 larva of an insect, but the perfect female of a winged 

 beetle, from which it is altogether so different, that 

 nothing but actual observation could have inferred the 



