4\8 LUMINOUS INSECTS, 



and consternation. On inquiring- into the cause, they 

 ascertained that some of the Lampyris iialicu had found 

 their way into the dvvellinn, and that the ladies within 

 had taken it into their heads that these brilliant guests 

 were no other than the troubled spirits of their rela- 

 tions ; of which idea it was some time before they could 

 be divested, — The common people in Italy have a su- 

 perstition respecting- these insects somewhat similar, 

 believing that they are of a spiritual nature, and 

 proceed out of the graves, and lience carefully avoid 

 them^. 



The insects hitherto adverted to have been beetles, 

 or of the order Coleoptera. But besides these, a genus 

 in the order Hemiptera^ called Fulgora^ includes seve- 

 ral species which emit so powerful a light as to have 

 obtained in English the generic appellation of Z/Ow^en?- 

 Jlies. Two of the most conspicuous of this tribe are 

 the F. laternaria and F. candelaria ; the former a na- 

 tive of South America, the latter of China. Both, as 

 indeed is the case with the whole genus, have the ma- 

 terial which diffuses their light included in a hollow 

 subtransparent projection of the head. In F. candelaria 

 this projection is of a subcylindrical shape, recurved at 

 tlie apex, above an inch in length, and the thickness of 

 a small quill. We may easily conceive, as travellers 

 assure us, that a tree studded with multitudes of these 

 living sparks, some at rest and others in motion, must 

 at night have a superlatively splendid appearance. — In 

 F. laternaria, which is an insect two or three inches 

 long, the snout is much larger and broader, and more 

 of an oval shape, and sheds a light the brilliancy of 



• Tour on the Conlincnt^ 2d Edit, iii. 85, 



