LAMPYRID^ — GLOW-WORMS. 5t 



In India, the ladies have recourse to Fire-flies for orna- 

 ments for their hair, when they take their evening walks. 

 They inclose them in nets of gauze/ And the beaux of 

 Italy, Sir J. E. Smith tells us, are accustomed in the summer 

 evenings to adorn the heads of the ladies with Glow-worms, 

 by sticking them also in their hair.^ 



Never kill a Glow-worm, if you do, the country people 

 say, you will put "the light out of your house," — i.e. 

 happiness, prosperity, or whatever blessing you may be en- 

 joying. 



A Glow-worm, in your path, denotes brilliant success in 

 all your undertakings. If one enters a house, one of the 

 heads of the family will shortly die. These superstitions 

 obtain in Maryland. 



Of the Glow-worm — Noctiluca terrestris, Col. Ecphr., i. 

 38 — Dr. James says: "The whole insect is used in medicine, 

 and recommended by some against the Stone. Cardan as- 

 cribes an anodyne virtue to it.''^ 



Mr. Kay, in his travels through the State of Yenice, says ; 

 "A discovery made by a certain gentleman, and communi- 

 cated to me by Francis Jessop, Esq., is, that those reputed 

 meteors, called in Latin Ignis fatui, and known in Eng- 

 land by the conceited names of Jack with a Lantho7^n, and 

 Will ivilh a Wisj:), are nothing else but swarms of these 

 flying Glow-worms. Which, if true, we may give an easy 

 account of those phenomena of these supposed fires, viz., 

 their sudden motion from place to place, and leading travel- 

 ers that follow them into bogs and precipices."* It has been 

 suggested^ also that the mole-cricket, Gryllotalpa vulgaris,^ 

 which in its nocturnal peregrinations was supposed to be 

 luminous, is this notorious "Will-o'-the-wisp." 



Pliny says : "When Glow-worms appear, it is a common 



1 Kirb. and Sp. Introd , i. 317. 



2 Tour on Continent, iii. 85. 2d Edit. 

 » Med. Diet. 



* Harris' Col. of Voy. and Trav., ii. 688. 



5 Harris, Farm Insects, p. 372. 



6 This insect has received its English names, of Mule-criclcet and 

 Earth-crab, from its burrowing like a mole, and some species of W. 

 Indian crabs; and, from its supposed jarring song at night, it is 

 also called Eve-churr, Chiirr-worm, and Jarr-worm. — Ibid. 



6* 



