DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 317 



the purpose to which in the West Indies and South 

 America the fire-flies are put by the natives, who employ 

 them as lanterns in their journeys, and lamps in their 

 houses a ; or the use as ornaments to which some insects 

 are ingeniously applied by the ladies, who in China em- 

 broider their dresses with the elytra and crust of a bril- 

 liant species of beetle (Buprestis vittata); in Chili and 

 the Brazils form splendid necklaces of the golden Chry- 

 somelida and brilliant diamond beetles, &c. b ; in some 

 parts of the continent string together for the same pur- 

 pose the burnished violet-coloured thighs of Geotrupes 

 stercorarius, &c. c ; and in India, as I am informed by 

 Major Moor and Captain Green, even have recourse to 

 fire-flies, which they inclose in gauze and use as orna- 

 ments for their hair when they take their evening walks. 

 I shall confine my details to the more important and 

 general products which they supply to the arts, begin- 

 ning with one indispensable to our present correspond- 

 ence, and adverting in succession to the insects affording 

 dyes, lac, wax, honey, and silk. 



No present that insects have made to the arts is equal 

 in utility and universal interest, comes more home to 

 our best affections, or is the instrument of producing 

 more valuable fruits of human wisdom and genius, than 

 the product of the animal to which I have just alluded. 

 You will readily conjecture I mean the fly that gives birth 

 to the gall-nut, from which ink is, made. How infinitely 

 are we indebted to this little creature, which at once 

 enables us to converse with our absent friends and con- 



a Captain Green was accustomed to put a fire-fly under the glass 

 of his watch, when he had occasion to rise very early for a march, 

 which enabled him, without difficulty, to distinguish the hour. 



b Molina, i. 171. 285. Latr. Hist. Nat. x. 143. 



