76 A LIGHT ON IGNES FATUI. 



" A strange tale !" say our readers. " We don't believe a 

 word of it." Perhaps not ; but, after all, there's nothing so 

 very strange about it, except a little strange coincidence, such 

 as occurs too often to deserve the appellation. 



"But the strange light?" What then? Who has not 

 seen or heard of ignes fatui Jack o' Lantern and his hun- 

 dred cousins ? " Well, but what have Jack o' Lanterns to 

 do with insects?" More, perhaps, than you think of. And 

 now read the following passage, " whereby hangs our tale," 

 and which may serve, moreover, with those who have not 

 read it before, to cast one new light, amongst various others, 

 on Jack o' Lanterns in general, as well as that in particular 

 of " Tombstone Tim." 



It is related by Mr. Kirby, that to a friend of his, then (in 

 1780) a curate in Cambridgeshire, a Mole-Cricket* was once 

 brought by a farmer, who informed him that one of his peo- 

 ple, seeing a Jack o' Lantern, pursued it, and knocked down 

 the insect in question. An ignis fatuus is also described by 

 Derham as seen flitting, insect-like, about a thistle, a cor- 

 roborate observation as to the nature, in some instances, of 

 such a light. 



The luminosity of the mole-cricket not being generally 

 known, is no proof of its non-existence, other light-bearing 

 insects being capricious and uncertain in the illumination of 

 their lanterns. The mole-cricket is altogether a very curious 



* Gryllotalpa vulgaris. 



