1887. ] NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 67 
insect, alike as to its reputation in Brazil, its harmless nature, 
and its light-producing powers. 
The editor who makes these comments is Dr. Bernardo Pinto 
Monteiro, one of the leading citizens of the province. 
(From the Liberal Mineiro newspaper, Ouro Preto, Province 
of Minas Geraes, Brazil, Dec. 19th, 1885.) 
“The Gitiranaboia (Lantern-Fly). 
«¢ Kverybody in Brazil knows the frightful stories told of the 
terrible gitiranadoia (lantern-fly). It is well known also that 
there are plenty of places in the interior of Minas Geraes where 
the people travel all the time with their umbrellas up for fear 
of being touched by this fatal insect—this species of winged 
death ! 
“The people, who are so fond of everything that smacks of 
the miraculous and mysterious, go on scattering these fables, 
which, by simple force of continual repetition, have come to be 
looked upon as the truth. 
“Tt is not long since we had a kind of crusade in this country 
against the ewcalyptus trees, because it was said that these trees 
were the chosen resort of this dreadful insect, which insect is, as 
a matter of fact, as innocent as the butterflies that hover about 
the flowers in our gardens.’ 
*«'Those whose business it is should seek other reasons, if there 
are any, for making this war upon trees that furnish good tim- 
ber, and should leave the poor gitiranadoia (lantern-fly) in 
eace. 
: “‘For the most part, this creature owes its bad reputation to 
its ill-shaped figure, and to the beak it carries beneath its body, 
which, however, is as harmless as any briar. 
“A good specimen of the insect known in the province of 
Minas Geraes as the gitiranaboia has been given me by Dr. 
Claudius Pereira da Fonseca. It is a true Fulgora, which, 
although it does not produce light, is called lanternaria. It is 
unquestionably the same that was nicely figured in 1788 in the 
dictionary of technical terms used in natural history, and taken 
from the works of Linneus by Domingos Vandelli, and it is also 
the same as the one figured and referred to by Dr. John C, 
Branner in his paper published in the American Naturalist. 
There is scarcely a single lover of curiosities in Ouro Preto who 
does not possess at least one specimen of this poor, much abused 
1In 1882, Prof. C. V. Riley, U. S. Entomologist, showed me a clipping 
from a Spanish-American paper in which it wasstated that these lantern- 
flies bred in large numbers upon the eucalyptus trees in Southern Brazil, 
and that they destroyed nearly all the cattle in that part of the country. 
—J. C. BRANNER. 
