LUMINOUS INSECT!?. 419 



which transcends that of any other luminous insect. 

 Madam Merian informs us, that the first discovery 

 which she made of this property caused her no small 

 alarm. The Indians had brought her several of these 

 insects, which by day-light exhibited no extraordinary 

 appearance, and she inclosed them in a box until she 

 should have an opportunity of drawing them, placing- 

 it upon a table in her lodging-room. In the middle of 

 the night the confined insects made such a noise as to 

 awake her, and she opened the box, the inside of 

 which to her great astonishment appeared all in a 

 blaze ; and in her fright letting it fall, she was not less 

 surprised to see each of the insects apparently on fire. 

 She soon, however, divined the cause of this unex- 

 pected phenomenon, and re-inclosed her brilliant guests 

 in their place of confinement. She adds, that the light 

 of one of these Fulgorce is sufficiently bright to read a 

 newspaper by: and though the tale of her having 

 drawn one of these insects by its own light is without 

 foundation, she doubtless might have done so if she had 

 chosen^. — Another species (F. p?/rrliori/nchus) is fi- 

 gured by Mr. Donovan in his Insects of India, of which 



' 7>j,s. Siir. 49. — The above account of the luminous properties of 

 Fulgora Utleniaria is given, because negative evidence ought not hastily 

 to be allowed to set aside facts positively asserted by an author wliose 

 veracity is unimpeached ; but it is necessary to state, that not only have 

 several of the inhabitants of Cayenne, according to the French Dic- 

 tionnnirt d'Histuirc Naturelle, denied that this insect shines, in which de- 

 nial tiiey are joined by M. Richard, who reared the species {Enc^clo- 

 pedie, art. Fulgora') ; but the learned and accurate Count floflniansegg 

 informs rs, that his inse:t collector Sieber, a practised entomologist of 

 thirty years standing, and who, when in the Brazils for some years, took 

 many specimens, affirms, that he never saw a single one in the least lu,- 

 minoiis. Drr GcseUschufl Nuturf. Fr. zu Berlin Mag. S)C. i. 133. 

 2E 2 



