4-14? LUMINOUS INSECTS. 



which she made of this property caused her no small 

 alarm. The Indians had brought her several of these 

 insects, which by day-light exhibited no extraordinary 

 appearance, and she inclosed them in a box until she 

 should have an opportunity of drawing them, placing it 

 upon a table in her lodging-room. In the middle of the 

 night the confined insects made such a noise as to awake 

 her, and she opened the box, the inside of which to her 

 great astonishment appeared all in a blaze ; and in her 

 fright letting it fall, she was not less surprised to see each 

 of the insects apparently on fire. She soon, however, 

 divined the cause of this unexpected phenomenon, and 

 re- inclosed her brilliant guests in their place of confine- 

 ment. She adds, that the light of one of these Fulgora; 

 is sufficiently bright to read a newspaper by: and though 

 the tale of her having drawn one of these insects by its 

 own light is without foundation, she doubtless might 

 have done so if she had chosen a . Another species (F. 

 pyrrhorynchus) is figured by Mr. Donovan in his Insects 

 of India, of which the light, though from a smaller snout 

 than that of F. laternaria, must assume a more splendid 



a Ins. Sur. 49. The above account of the luminous properties of 

 Fulgora laternaria is given, because negative evidence ought not 

 hastily to be allowed to set aside facts positively asserted by an au- 

 thor whose veracity is unimpeached; but it is necessary to state, 

 that not only have several of the inhabitants of Cayenne, according 

 to the French Dictionnaire d'Histoire Naturelle, denied that this 

 insect shines, in which denial they are joined by M. Richard, who 

 reared the species (Encyclopedic, art. Fulgora} ; but the learned and 

 accurate Count Hoffmansegg informs us, that his insect collector 

 Sieber, a practised entomologist of thirty years standing, and who, 

 when in the Brazils for some years, took many specimens, affirms 

 that he never saw a single one in the least luminous. Der Gesells- 

 chaft Naturf. Fr. zu Berlin Mag. i. 153. 



