11 



The Rev. H. S. Gorham stated that the term "fire-fly" was applied 

 to all luminous iusects indiscriminately. In the district where Mr. Pascoe's 

 specimen occurred there were perhaps fifty species of highly phos- 

 phorescent Coleoptera. With regard to our species, Lampyrts noctiluca, 

 he did not think that the insect had the power of suddenly with- 

 drawing its light, having often handled and irritated them with a view to 

 trying the experiment. He was of opinion that the light of the female 

 L. noctiluca is certainly brighter when the insect is unimpregnated ; after 

 which it ceases to be so brilliant. Mr. Gorham believed that the so-called 

 " flashing " was often simply due to the creature crawling over leaves and 

 herbage, and thus exposing the ventral surface only at times. 



Mr. M'Lachlan remarked that the subject of the simultaneous flashing 

 of fire-flies had been brought under the notice of the Society in 1865 by 

 the Rev. Hamlet Clark (see Proc. Ent. Soc, ser. iii., vol. ii., pp. 9-1, 101), 

 and that he had at that time advanced the opinion that tlie phenomenon in 

 question might be caused by currents of air inducing the insects to simul- 

 taneously change their direction of flight. He was of opinion that the 

 common glow-worm was not capable of extinguishing its light when alarmed, 

 as he had captured large numbers in a net at the same time, the insects 

 nevertheless continuing to shine. 



Mr. Osbert Salvin stated that in the Central American region he had 

 observed that a luminous Elaterid, Fyrophorus, had a straight flight. 



Sir Sidney Saunders stated that in the South of Europe (Corfu and 

 Albania) the simultaneous flashing of Luciola italica, with intervals of 

 complete darkness for some seconds, was constantly witnessed in the calm 

 summer nights, when swarming myriads were to be seen far and near 

 obeyhig this peculiar instinct of their race. He did not concur in the 

 hypothesis propounded by Mr. M'Lachlan, that currents of air might induce 

 a number of these insects simultaneously to change the direction of their 

 fliglit, and thereby occasion a momentary concealment of their light, which 

 would seem to imply a continuous luminosity, casually occulted ; whereas 

 the flashes are certainly intermittent, as shown by the difficulty experienced 

 in capturing a specimen flying in the open close at hand, when the flash 

 becomes extinguished before the object can be attained, to be renewed for 

 an instant at the distance of several feet. Tiie simultaneous character of 

 these curruscations, among vast swarms, would seem to depend upon an 

 intuitive impulse to en)it their light at certain intervals as a protective 

 influence, which intervals became assimilated to each other by imitative 

 emulation. But whatever the inciting causes of the phenomenon, he 

 affirmed that the fact itself was incontestable, and a frequent subject of 

 remark by all observers there. 



Mr. Jenner Weir said that he had noticed that when a glow-worm was 

 captured the light began gradually to diminish in intensity, but did not 

 quite cease to be visible. 



