1831.3^ Motithly Revietv of LUerature. 571 



regard the senses of insects — their means and modes of eating — and their sociat ^ 

 and domestic habits. The chief value of Mr. R.'s book consists in the bare pre-- 

 sentation of facts, and the exposure of blunders — he but rarely indulges in 

 guesses. 



The purpose for which the glow-worm lights up its lamp is still as much in 

 obscurity as ever. Dumeril calls it, as others, naturalists as well as poets, the 

 lamp of love. It is the female who supplies the light. She has no wings ; whilst 

 the male has them. The female then is supposed to light up her lamp, like Hero 

 for her Leander. Mr. Knapp, in his Journal of a Naturalist, discovers evidence 

 of this purpose in the very conformation of the male. He — the male, not Mr. 

 Knapp — can see below him only, from the position of his eyes, and with good 

 reason, for he has nothing to do but to look out for the lamp of his mistress. 

 But unluckily for this inference, the eyes of the female, though but half the size, 

 are precisely the same as to structure and position, as those of the male ; and 

 she never rises from the ground. Besides the glow-worm shines in its infant, 

 and in its larva state, in neither of which is a love-meeting, at least love-making, 

 desirable or practicable. The male too, after all, shines as well as the female, 

 though not so brilliantly. But what is still more destructive of this theory — 

 shewing how ready naturalists are to run before their facts — is, that the males 

 are scarcely ever, or if ever, by mere accident, found among the females, when 

 their lamps are thus lighted up. The blaze does not, after all, answer the purpose 

 assigned. The males do not come. Mr. Rennie even put a lot of females in 

 full glow in a box on the sea-bank, near Havre-de-Grace, where the insect 

 abounds ; but not a male approached the concentrated blaze (perhaps they were 

 dazzled and alarmed) no, not though its position was changed several times, and 

 continued till after midnight, when, according to Shakspeare, and White of Sel- 

 borne, he, or she, or both, " 'gin to pale their ineffectual fires." Mr. R. as we 

 said, does not himself deal in guesses, but he delights in demolishing those of 

 others — Mr. John Murray's especially. This latter gentleman conjectures that 

 the glow-worm lights up either to find her own food, or obligingly to enable the 

 nightingale to find herself, for a tit-bit ; — but here too, the fact is still to be ascer- 

 tained whether the nightingale feeds at all on the glow-worm. It is pretty plain 

 these naturalists, as well as the chemists and others, will at last leave the poets 

 nothing to feed on. 



FINE ARTS' PUBLICATIONS. 



THE ANNUALS. 



The ^mu/p/. Edited by S. C. Hall. — ^The Amulet is this year distinguished from 

 itself, as well as from all others, by a new and beautiful binding that unites the 

 durable and the decorative to an admirable degree of perfection. Some of the 

 annuals are evidently not meant to be read, and scarcely to be touched ; but Mr. 

 Hall has very rightly foreseen that the Amulet will be fondly and frequently re- 

 ferred to, and he has consequently provided it with a covering that will resist the 

 attacks of its admirers. One of the distinguishing features of this beautiful 

 volume, as regards its embellishments, is a set of splendid engravings from pic- 

 tures by Sir Thomas Lawrence ; and what considerably enhances the value of 

 these is, that they are female portraits. Two of them flash upon us the instant 

 we open the book ; one. The Portrait, a most fascinating and finely-executed 

 print ; the other, a portrait of Lady Cawdor, contending for the prize of our 

 admiration, and fairly dividing it with its companion. Turning over a leaf or 

 two we come to another — Lady Londonderry and her son (every body recollects 

 the picture — it is dazzling us yet) ; and proceeding still further we light on one 

 — shall we say it is more beautiful ? — it is more tender, feminine, and delicate 

 than any of tlicm. This is a portrait of " Sophie," the daughter of the illus-, 

 trious Cuvier. We now turn to more general subjects ; the Death of the First , 

 Born is an effective engraving ; and Ilaydon's Euclcs an admirable one. Corinne, 



