^14 The insect world. 



America to Paris, probably in some old piece of wood which 

 happened to be on the vessel, caused great terror to the inhabitants 

 of the Faubourg St. Antoine, when they saw it flying in the evening, 

 glittering in the air. In 1864 a number of Cucuyos were brought 

 from Mexico to Paris by M. Laurent, captain of the frigate La Floride. 

 An experiment, made in the laboratory of the Ecole Normale, showed 

 that the spectrum of their light is continuous, without any black 

 rays ; it differs, besides, from the spectrum of the solar light by a 

 greater intensity of the yellow colour. The light is produced 

 probably, as it is in the case of the Lampyris, by the slow combustion 



')f\ : ;\vi> '']{■/( ill 



i 



^ , Fig. 554- Fig. 555. 



. . 1 The Cucuyo {PyroJ>horus noctilucHs). Buprestis (Cyria) imperialis, 



of a substance secreted by the animal. The Cucuyo can, neverthe- 

 less, at will, increase or diminish the splendour of this light by 

 means of membranes which it superposes, like screens, in front of 

 the phosphorescent bumps which it has on its thorax. . '- ^ 

 ^' In the Indies, and in China, the women use for dresSiTtg thei? 

 hair with, or as ear-rings, another Coleopteron of the same tribe, 

 which begins even to be employed for this purpose by the women of 

 the south of France. It is a Buprestis^ of splendid colours, and of 

 metallic brightness. Linnceus gave to it, wrongly, the name of 

 Buprestis, which among the ancients served to designate a very 

 different insect, the Meioe^ of the family of the Cantharidce ; but 

 modern naturalists have allowed this illegitimate title. 



The Buprestidce walk heavily, but fly with the greatest ease during 

 .'rhe heat of the sun, and settle on the trunks of trees exposed to its 



