508 LUMINOUS INSECTS. 



Lamarck, a beetle, has two red oval spots covered with a downy membrane 

 on the second segment of the abdomen, which he thinks indicate some 

 particular organ, perhaps luminous 1 ; and M. Latreille informed me that a 

 friend of his, who saw one living which was brought from China to the Isle 

 of France in wood, found that the ocelli in the elytra of Buprestis ocellata 

 were luminous. One of the longicorn beetles, Dadoychux flavocinctus 

 Chevrolat (allied to Saperda), has the third and fourth segments of the 

 abdomen with the same yellow colour and appearance of the luminous seg- 

 ments of the Lampyrida;, whence M. Chevrolat infers that it is like them 

 luminous ; and M. de Laporte informs him that a considerable number of 

 Brazilian Helopidce, allied to Stenochia, present a similar character indicating 

 a like property. 2 



The insects hitherto adverted to have been beetles, or of the order Cole- 

 optera. But besides these, a genus in the order Hemiptera, called Fu/gora, 

 includes several species which are supposed to emit so powerful a light as to 

 have obtained in English the generic appellation of Lantern-flies. Two of the 

 most conspicuous of this tribe are the F. laternaria and F. candelaria ; the 

 former a native of South America, the latter of China. Both, as indeed is 

 the case with the whole genus, are supposed to have the material which 

 diffuses their light included in a subtransparent projection of the head. In 

 F. candelaria this projection is of a subcylindrical shape, recurved at the 

 apex, above an inch in length, and the thickness of a small quill. In F. 

 laternaria^ which is an irtsect two or three inches long, the snout is much 

 larger and broader, and more of an oval shape, and sheds a light the bril- 

 liancy of which is said to transcend that of any other luminous insect. 

 Madame Merian informs us, that the first discovery which she made of this 

 property caused her no small alarm. The Indians had brought her several 

 of these insects, which by daylight exhibited no extraordinary appearance, 

 and she inclosed them in a box until she should have an opportunity of 

 drawing them, placing it upon a table in her lodging-room. In the middle 

 of the night the confined insects made such a noise as to awake her, and 

 she opened the box, the inside of which to her great astonishment appeared 

 all in a blaze ; and in her fright letting it fall, she was not less surprised to 

 see each of the insects apparently on fire. She soon, however, divined the 

 cause of this unexpected phenomenon, and re-inclosed her brilliant guests 

 in their place of confinement. She adds, that the light of one of these 

 FulgorcB is sufficiently bright to read a newspaper by : and though the tale 

 of her having drawn one of these insects by its own light is without foun- 

 dation, she doubtless might have done so if she had chosen. 3 



1 Latr. Hist. Nat. x. 262. 



2 Chevrolat in Silbermann's Rev. Entom. i. t. 14. 



5 Ins. Sur. 49. The above account of the luminous properties of Fulgord laternaria 

 is given, because negative evidence ought not hastily to be allowed to set aside facts 

 positively asserted by an author who could have no conceivable motive for inventing 

 such a fable ; but it is necessary to state, that not only have several of the inhabitants 

 of Cayenne, according to the French Dictionnaire d'Histoire Naturelle, denied that 

 this insect shines, in which denial they are joined by M. Richard, who reared the 

 species (Encyclopedic, art. Fulgora) ; but the learned and accurate Count Hoffmansegg 

 informs us, that his insect collector Sieber, a practised entomologist of thirty years' 

 standing, and who, when in the Brazils for some years, took many specimens, affirms 

 that he never saw a single one in the least luminous. (JDer Gessellschaft Naturf. Fr. 

 zu Berlin Mag. i. 153.) On the other hand M. Lacordaire states that, though he 

 never saw a luminous individual of this species, either in Brazil or Cayenne, and 



