Wotes ot tbe H*f0bt 



their surroundings. The bushes appear tipped 

 with fire, but it is not fire nor even a heat-giving 

 light. The purport of this strange phenomenon is 

 not altogether clear to us. Every entomology has 

 much to say, but it is a glittering generality, much 

 like the light itself, and when done reading we are 

 about as much in the dark as when the flash of a 

 fire-fly is suddenly snuffed out. I know these in- 

 sects as fire-flies, and nothing more. " Lightning- 

 bugs " in boyhood days, and it is a better name, if 

 not quite so elegant. We are well favored here at 

 home with these beetles, for there is the yellow 

 flash-light on the upland fields, and a blue light on 

 the meadows, the latter appearing to leave a long 

 thread of light behind it as it flies. I have occa- 

 sionally seen them, single ones, above trees that 

 were sixty to seventy feet high, and timed the du- 

 ration of their light at one and three-fourths sec- 

 onds. Bats, it may be remarked, swallow them 

 greedily, but I do not think the wood-peewee 

 ventures to molest them ; at least not after sunset, 

 when the light is distinct. Would a bat, whip- 

 poorwill or chimney-swift become phosphorescent 

 after an exclusive meal of lightning-bugs ? The 

 light, when rubbed upon the fingers, leaves a glow 

 that remains for a short time. 



I have seldom noticed " glow-worms," or fire- 

 fly larva, near home, although I have searched the 

 meadows carefully; but about Princeton, some 

 ten miles away, they are not uncommon. They 



