1900.] INSHOTS OF THE ‘‘SKEAT EXPEDITION.” 865 
possessed by some peculiar South-American beetles', of showing 
lights of different colours on different parts of the body at the 
same time is not more wonderful, or more conspicuous, than this. 
The phenomenon is not common on the east coast of the Malay 
Peninsula, where the soil is sandy; but it is said to be often 
manifested both in Siam proper and among the mangrove-swamps 
of Perak and Selangor in the west. I have only been able to see 
it on one oceasion, and that was on the bank of the river near 
Kuala Patani, one fine evening at the end of June. 
A large tree was covered with many hundreds of fire-flies, the 
majority of which seemed, judging from the similarity of their 
lights, to belong to one species, or perhaps to one sex. There 
were three individuals seated together, however, whose lights 
were larger and bluer than those of the others. The lights of all 
the specimens of the more abundant variety flickered in unison 
with one another; those of the minority, the three individuals, 
flickered together also, but in a different time. At one instant 
the tree was all lighted up as if by hundreds of little electric 
lamps; at the next if was in complete darkness, except for three 
blue points. Then, again, it was covered with white points, except 
for a little patch of darkness where the three blue lights had been, 
and would be again immediately. A similar power of displaying 
luminosity in unison is said to be exhibited by some marine 
animals, even atter they have been removed from the water ; but 
the questions as to how this unison is effected and what is its 
exact object are obscure. The power by which it is regulated may 
be somewhat analogous to that which causes all the individuals 
composing a flock of birds to wheel at the same instant. As 
Professor Poulton has pointed out to me, the rhythmical display 
of light among a crowd of individuals appears much more 
conspicuous to the eye than the simple flickering of a number of 
independent points. 
Malay Names.—The ordinary Malay term for a fire-fly is klip- 
klip, a name which seems to suggest the rapid flickering of the 
insect’s light, though the word kip is used in the sense of to 
glitter. Our west-coast servants called the luminous beetle larve 
with which we met in Patalung, “ klip-klip tanah,” land or earth 
fire-flies. The aquatic species, which they had never seen or heard 
of before, they christened ‘ klip-klip ayer,” or water fire-fly. His 
Excellency Phya Sukum, the Siamese Chief Commissioner for the 
Ligor Circle, to whose hospitality and administration we owed 
much, tells me that he has seen, in the south of Ligor and near 
Singora, a large green worm which sits on trees, and it is so 
brilliantly luminous at night that it well deserves its Siamese 
name of Lightning Grub. On one occasion he secured a specimen, 
and was conveying it to Bangkok ; but unfortunately it was killed 
on the voyage through the carelessness of a servant who closed 
the box in which it was. 
‘ See Haase, Deutsche ent. Zeitschr. 1888, pp. 146-167. 
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