When Darkness has fallen. 1 1 1 



blade with moisture. When the day and sun broke, 

 this would glow with a million brilliant prismatic 

 colours, then suddenly vanish. But the illumi- 

 nation came sooner, and in a different way. 

 The rain ceased, and hundreds of tiny living 

 lights lit up the sward. In the intense darkness 

 these shone with an unusual brilliancy, and lit 

 up the almost impalpable moisture. Every foot 

 of ground was studded with its star-like gem, and 

 these twinkled and shone as the fireflies stirred in 

 the grass. The sight was quite an un-English one, 

 and the soft green glow only paled at the 

 coming of day. One phase of this interesting 

 phenomenon is that now we can have a repro- 

 duction of it nightly. The fireflies were 

 collected, turned down on the lawn, and their 

 hundred luminous lamps now shed a soft lustre 

 over all the green. 



Why our British fireflies are designated 

 " glow-worms" is difficult to understand. Lam- 

 pyris noctiluca has nothing worm-like about it. 

 It is a true insect. The popular misconception 

 has probably arisen in this wise. The female 

 glow-worm, the light-giver, is wingless ; the 

 male is winged. The latter, however, has but 

 little of the light emitting power possessed by 

 the female. Only the light-givers are collected, 

 and being destitute of the first attribute of an 

 insect, wings, are set down in popular parlance 



