PAIRING OP INSECTS. 229 



" soon did night display 



More wonders than it veil'd : innumerous tribes 

 From the wood-cover swarm'd, and darkness made 

 Their beauties visible : one while they streamed 

 A bright blue radiance upon flowers that closed 

 Their gorgeous colours from the eye of day; 

 Now motionless and dark, eluded search, 

 Self-shrouded ; and anon, starring the sky, 

 Rose like a shower of fire." Madoc. 



We are told by Mouffet, that when Sir Thomas 

 Cavendish and Sir Robert Dudley landed in the 

 West Indies, and saw in the evening an infinite num- 

 ber of moving lights in the woods, which, though 

 nothing more than fire-flies, were taken by them for 

 Spaniards advancing upon them by torch-light, 

 they immediately fled to their ships *. 



Lantern-fly {Fulgora lanternariti). 



We are not aware that any native insect is luminous 

 besides the glow-worm and the electric centipede 

 * Theatr. Insect. 112. 



X 



