162 INSECTS ABROAD. 



" Whether any light would appear pervading the abdomen if 



the segments were stretched, I cannot positively say, tor I have 

 not in my journal any note on this point. I think not, however, 

 for in my repeated handlings of these insects and experiments 

 on their abdomens, I could scarcely have avoided extending the 

 segments, even unintentionally ; but I am quite certain I never 

 saw any light except in the one ventral and the two thoracic 

 spots. If one be trodden on, a mass of mixed light remains for 

 some minutes among the fragments." 



" The story told by Peter Martyr of these Elaters having been 

 hunted for, to eat the mosquitos, is sufficiently amusing ; of 

 course it is not right to contradict a statement because one has 

 never verified it, but I may be permitted to observe that I 

 utterly disbelieve it. That they might afford a substitute for 

 candles in performing household operations that required no 

 great exactness is certainly true, provided they were constantly 

 carried in the lingers; but if put under a glass, or allowed 

 liberty in a room, as I have abundantly proved, they very 

 quickly conceal their liglit. I have found, too, that one kept 

 beneath a glass would display very little light the next evening, 

 even under the excitement of being handled, and on the follow- 

 ing night would be irrecoverably dark ; this may have resulted 

 from the lack of food, or of exercise; not, I think, from the lack 

 of air or of moisture. 



"Peter Martyr asserts that the natives of Hispaniola, at the 

 time of the discovery, were in the habit of tying one of these 

 glow-fiies to each of their great toes when they journeyed by 

 night through the woods ; a thing not at all improbable. The 

 two insects would throw a considerable light around the tra- 

 veller's steps, and, if they should withhold their luminosity, 

 might easily be replaced by others freshly caught. On this 

 custom Southey, in the beautiful poem already quoted, has 

 founded a pretty incident. When Ooatel was guiding Madoc 

 through the cavern — - 



*»■ 



' She beckoned, and descended, and drew out 

 From underneath her vest, a cage, or net 

 It rather might be called, so fine the twigs 

 Which knit it, where, confined, two tire-flies gave 

 Their lustre.' 



Madoc, 11, wii." 



