THE KOMANCE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



There are two kinds in particular, of larger size 

 than usual, which are very conspicuous. One of 

 these* is more vagrant than the other, shooting 

 about with a headlong flight, and rarely observed 

 in repose. Its light appears of a rich orange hue 

 when seen abroad ; but it frequently flies in at 

 open windows, and, when examined under candle- 

 light, its luminosity is yellow: when held in the 

 fingers, the light is seen to fill the hinder part of 

 the body with dazzling effulgence, which intermits 

 its intensity. The otherf is more commonly 

 noticed resting on a twig or leaf, where it gradu- 

 ally increases the intensity of its light till it glows 

 like a torch; than as gradually, it allows it to 

 fade to a spark, and become extinct; in about a 

 minute, however, it begins to appear again, and 

 gradually increases to its former blaze ; then fades 

 again: strongly reminding the beholder of a re- 

 volving light at sea. The hue of this is a rich 

 yellow-green ; and sometimes a rover of the former 

 species will arrest its course, and, approaching 

 one of these on a leaf, will play around it, when 

 the intermingling of the orange and green lights 

 has a most charming effect. 



In the lowland pastures of the same beauteous 

 island, there is another insectj abundant, of much 

 larger dimensions, which displays both red and 

 green light. On the upper surface of the thorax, 

 there are two oval tubercles, hard and trans- 

 parent, like "bull's-eye"' lights let into a ship's 

 deck; these are windows out of which shines a 

 vivid green luminousness, which appears to fill the 

 interior of the chest. Then on the under surface 

 of the body, at the base of the abdomen, there is 

 a transverse orifice in the shelly skin, covered with 



* Pygolampis xanthophotis. f Photuris versicolor. 



% Pyrophorus noctilucus. 



42 



