XIII 

 LAMP-BEARERS 



THOUGH the bearers of lights produced and main- 

 tained by their own vital chemistry are common 

 enough among creatures of the sea, they are exceed- 

 ingly rare upon land. The ocean has many back- 

 boned light-bearers in the luminous fishes of the 

 deeps, but no terrestrial back-boned animal has 

 such power. The Lamp-bearers of the land are 

 all small invertebrate animals, and with very few 

 exceptions they are beetles. A hundred years ago 

 it was believed that there were others among the 

 bugs the so-called Lantern Flies but the belief 

 has long been given up ; though science has em- 

 balmed the error in their Latin name Fulgora. 



The name of our Glow-worm (Lampyris nocti- 

 luca) will at once arise to the mind of any reader 

 who has met with the male insect, and knows 

 therefore that it is a beetle, and not a worm, as 

 the unfortunate folk-name leads many to suppose. 

 This misconception is due, of course, to the fact 

 that the female, who carries a far more powerful 

 lamp than her mate, is not merely wingless, but 

 lacks also the wing-covers which many wingless 



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