COLEOPTERA. 435 



the appearance of being plaited. The luminous matter occupies the 

 inferior part of the last two or three annuli, which differ in colour 

 from the rest, and are usually yellowish or whitish. The light they 

 diffuse is more or less vivid, and greenish or whitish, like that of the 

 different kinds of phosphorus. It seems that they can vary its action 

 at pleasure, a fact particularly observable when they are seized or 

 held in the hand. They live a long time in vacuum and in different 

 gases, the nitrous acid, muriatic and sulphurous gases excepted, in 

 which they soon expire. Placed in hydrogen gas, they, sometimes 

 at least, detonate. They continue to live after the excision of this 

 luminous portion of their abdomen, and the part thus separated pre- 

 serves its luminous property for some time, whether it be submitted 

 to the action of various gases, be placed in vacuum, or left exposed to 

 the air. The phosphorescence depends on the softness of the matter, 

 rather than on the life of the animal. When apparently extinct it 

 may be reproduced by softening the matter with water. The Lampy- 

 rides emit a brilliant light when immersed in warm water, but in cold 

 water it becomes extinguished : this fluid seems to be the only dis- 

 solving agent of the phosphoric matter *. 



They are nocturnal Insects ; the males, like Phalenae of the same 

 sex, are frequently observed circling round the blaze of candles, &c., 

 from which we may conclude that this phosphoric light, which is 

 chiefly given out by the females, is intended to attract the former 

 to the latter : and if, as De Geer asserts, the larvae and pupae of 

 the species found in France are luminous, we are only to conclude 

 that the phosphoric matter is developed at the earliest period of 

 their existence. It has been said that some males were destitute of 

 this luminous property — but they still possess it though in a very 

 small degree. As nearly all the Lampyrides of hot climates, males 

 as well as females, are provided with wings and are extremely nu- 

 merous, they present to their inhabitants at night an interesting spec- 

 tacle, a continued illumination, proceeding from the myriads of 

 luminous points which like little wandering stars traverse the air 

 in every direction. 



According to M. Dufour — Ann. des Sc. Nat., Ill, p. 225 — the 

 alimentary canal of the female of the common European Lampyris, 

 the splendidula, is about twice the length of the body. The oeso- 

 phagus is extremely sliort and immediately dilated into an abbre- 

 viated crop separated from the chylific ventricle by a valvular stran- 

 gulation. The latter is very long, smooth, turgid, and cylindrical 

 for two thirds of its length, then intestiniform. The sm.all intestine 

 is very short and flexuous, presenting an enlargement (perhaps not 

 constant) representing a caecum, and terminated in an elongated 

 rectum. 



Certain Brazilian species, in which the antennae of the males con- 

 sist of more than eleven joints formed like the laminae of a feather, 



* Besides the experiments detailed in the Ann. de Chimie, see the Ann. G^n^r. des 

 Sc. Phys., of Messrs. Bory de Saint-Vincent, Drapiez et Van Mons. VIII, p. 31, 

 where will be found the researches of M. Grotthuss on the phosphorescence of the 

 Lampyris italica, 



ff2 



