84 



straight and fleshy, and being situated one on each side of the proboscis, guide and 

 guard it from injury while piercing an animal. The whole apparatus, being little 

 larger than the point of a pin, is well worthy of regard and admiration. I have taken 

 the larger species from my horses, so full of blood, that the abdomen was swollen al- 

 most to bursting, and of a deep red colour. It appears that on such occasions, as well 

 as in musquitoes, ticks, &c., the vessels and intestines must be either disruptured, the 

 blood flowing among the whole viscera, or else capable of such enormous distension, 

 as almost to fill the whole body." — p. 196. 



The fireflies of America are well known to entomologists, and their 

 intermittent light has already been noticed in the pages of The Ento- 

 mologist,' yet I trust the following quotation will not be unacceptable. 



" C. — What light is that before us ? F. — It is the firefly (Lampyris corusca) ; 

 which illuminates our summer nights with its radiance. When I came up the coun- 

 try from the St. Lawrence, travelling late one evening, I first saw these pretty insects. 

 The light, you see, is of a yellow colour, like that of flame, and very difl'erent from 

 the blue gleam of our English glow-worm ; from this circumstance, I at first took 

 them for candles in the woods, and though told what they were, at every one that ap- 

 peared, the same idea would come across my mind, that it was some one in the woods 

 carrying a candle, until I became more familiar with them. Even now, if I see one 

 suddenly, without having expected it, the impression momentarily recurs. They more 

 frequently give out the light while flying, than when crawling or resting, though we 

 may often observe the intermittent gleam as one crawls up a stalk of grass, or rests on 

 the leaf of a tree. They fly slowly, and as they fly, emit and conceal their light with 

 great regularity, at intervals of two or three seconds ; making interrupted lines of light 

 through the air, gleaming slowly along for about a yard, then suddenly quenched, and 

 appearing again at the same distance a-head. The insect is a pretty beetle, with soft 

 elytra, of a light brown colour, marked with red, and handsomely striped ; the light 

 proceeds from the last three segments of the abdomen, which are of a delicate cream 

 colour by day. At night these three segments are bright at all times, but at the re- 

 gular intervals I have mentioned, they flash out with dazzling splendour. If this 

 part be plucked oS" and crushed, many patches of brilliance occur for a few moments 

 among the flesh, but they gradually die away. In summer evenings they often occur 

 in great numbers, especially over wet and marshy ground : I have seen the whole air, 

 for a few yards above the surface of a large field, completely filled with them, thicker 

 than the stars on a winter night ; and, flashing and disappearing, every one moving 

 about in their mazy evolutions, it is really a very beautiful sight ; it is commonly be- 

 lieved these numbers precede rain. Notwithstanding their abundance, they are not 

 often seen by day. They are usually known here by the name of lightning-bugs." 



That the light of the fireflies " has some end useful in their economy may not be 

 doubted ; but what that end is, we are entirely ignorant. It has been concluded and 

 taken for granted, that in a parallel case, that of the common glow-worm of England 

 (Lampyris noctiluca), its purpose is to direct the winged male to the wingless female. 

 But it is surely forgotten that other insects have no diflficulty in finding the females 

 which are stationary, but that, on the contrary, they possess a peculiar power of disco- 

 vering them, even when totally concealed from sight, as when enclosed in boxes, and 

 even coming down chimneys, and beating against windows, to obtain access to them ; 



