546 History of Luminescence 



a remedy in Hill's Compleat History of Drugs (1737) or in the 

 History of Materia Medica (1751) . 



The Abbe Nollet (1750) was fascinated by the sight of the winged 

 Italian firefly in the countryside, observed on the same trip to Italy 

 during which he studied luminous worms in the canals of Venice. 

 Nollet observed that the lucciole always showed light when flying 

 and thought the flashing might result from alternate hiding and 

 exposing the light either by movement of the wings or owing to 

 the position of the body. However, close examination soon showed 

 him that the flashing " depended on an interior movement which I 

 perceived through the skin with a lens." The flashing was much 

 more marked when the animal was stirred up or about to fly; at 

 other times a weak steady light appeared in the light organ. 



Early in the eighteenth century, the life history of many insects 

 was worked out. In 1755 a fairly detailed paper on structure and 

 development of the glowworm was published by Baron Carl DeGeer 

 (1720-1778), the great Swedish entomologist and pupil of Linne. 

 His account only considered females, as these were common, whereas 

 the winged males of beetle form were hard to find. His plate, re- 

 produced as figure 42, gives an excellent idea of the larval stage 

 {I'etat veritable de ver) , the pupal stage (nymphe) and the adult 

 female (I'etat de perfection) with one figure showing the process 

 of moulting. 



Fougeroux de Bondaroy (1766) , in connection with his paper on 

 the Pyrophorus beetle which escaped in Paris, also explained the 

 relation between the male and female of the glowworm and the 

 winged Italian lucciole. He published good drawings of all these 

 forms (see figure 4 for the lucciole) . 



By far the most complete account has been given by P. Gueneau 

 de Montbeillard, in 1782, as he started with the egg. The observa- 

 tion that the eggs of lampyrids are luminous, made by Vintimillia 

 and recorded by Bartholin (1643) , remained unconfirmed for over 

 a century. Apparently Bartholin's book was unknown to Gueneau 

 de Montbeillard, as he was rather astonished to find not only lumi- 

 nous eggs but luminosity throughout the life cycle, from egg to 

 adult. He determined that unfertilized as well as fertilized eggs 

 were luminous. Usually the light of eggs lasted eight to ten days 

 but one batch of eggs were luminous after forty days. Only a single 

 sickly female laid non-luminous eggs. It took about a year from 

 egg to maturity. Although the female is wingless and remains on 

 the groimd, her brilliant lights were evidently designed to attract 

 the male for " nature is always attentive to perpetuation of the 

 species." 



