LUMINOUS INSECTS. -i 1 7 



Domingo {Elater noctilucus) with a quite difFerent in- 

 sect, the lantern-fly ( Fulgora laternaria) of Madam Me- 

 rian; but happily this error does not afl'ect his poetry. 



But to return from this digression. — If we are to be^ 

 lieve Mouffet, (and the story is not incredible,) the ap- 

 pearance of the tropical fire-flies on one occasion led 

 to a more important result than might have been ex- 

 pected from such a cause. He tells us, that when Sir 

 Thomas Cavendish and Sir Robert Dudley first landed 

 in the West Indies, and saw in the evening an infinite 

 number of moving lights in the woods, which were 

 merely these insects, they supposed that the Spaniards 

 were advancing upon them, and immediately betook 

 themselves to their ships ^ : — a result as well entitling 

 the Elaters to a commemoration feast, as a similar good 

 office the land-crabs of Hispaniola, which, as the Spa- 

 niards tell, (and the story is confirmed by an anniver- 

 sary Fiesta de Ids Carigrejos,) by their clattering — mis- 

 taken by the enemy for the sound of Spanish cavalry 

 close upon their heels — in like manner scared away a 

 body of English invaders of the city of St. Domingo''. 



An anecdote less improbable, perhaps, and certainly 

 more ludicrous, is related by Sir James Smith of the ef- 

 fect of the first sight of the Italian fire-flies upon some 

 Moorish ladies ignorant of such appearances. These 

 females had been taken prisoners at sea, and, until they 

 could be ransomed, lived in a house in the outskirts of 

 Genoa, where they were frequently visited by the re- 

 spectable inhabitants of the city; a partyof whom,on go- 

 ing one evening, vv^ere surprised to find the house closely 

 shut up, and their Moorish friends in the greatest grief 



''US. " Walton's Hi.panio'a,]. 39. 



VOL. II. 2 E 



