84 ELATER. 



colour of this animal is an uniform brown, and it 

 is a native of many parts of India and Africa. 



The Elater oculatus is also a large species, 

 though not equal to the preceding: it is a native 

 of many parts both of North and South-America, 

 and is of a dark brown or blackish colour, with 

 the thorax marked on each side by a very large, 

 oval, velvet-black spot, surrounded by a white 

 margin. 



A still more remarkable insect is the Elater 

 noctilucus, called in South- America, where it is 

 not uncommon, by the title of Cocujas, It is 

 about an inch and half long, and of a brown 

 colour, with the thorax marked on each side by a 

 smooth, yellow, semitransparent spot : these spots, 

 like those on the abdomen of the Glow- Worm, are 

 highly luminous, diffusing, during the night, so 

 brilliant a phosphoric splendor, that a person may 

 with great ease read the smallest print by the insect's 

 light, if held between the fingers and moved along the 

 lines: but if eight or ten be put into a clear phial, 

 they will afford a light equal to that of a common 

 candle. It is said that the inhabitants of His- 

 paniola, &c. before the first arrival of the Spaniards, 

 made use of no other light than these insects; and 

 we are informed by Mouffet, that when Sir Thomas 

 Cavendish and Sir Robert Dudley, son to the Earl 

 of Leicester, first landed in the West-Indies, and 

 saw, the same evening, an infinite number of 

 moving lights in the woods, they supposed that 

 the Spaniards were advanced upon them unawares, 

 aad immediately betook themselves to their ships. 



