174 LUMINOUS CENTIPEDE. 



that if the "Swan of Avon" had applied this epithet to the 

 moth instead of glowworm, his fancy would have better cor- 

 responded with fact ; for a fact it is, though probably quite 

 unknown in the days of Shakespeare, that many species of 

 night-flying moths are endowed with luminosity in the organs 

 of sight, the light being most visible while the insect is in 

 motion. 



"Pour 1'amour de ses beaux yeux," we may perhaps, 

 therefore, include the moth among luminous insects ; but 

 there is another, a native of England, perhaps as common as 

 the glowworm, which, although from its habits comparatively 

 little noticed, shares her luminous endowments to a very con- 

 siderable extent. This is the electric centipede,* a black, 

 many -legged crawler, which almost everybody must have seen 

 and shrunk from, as it has crossed their path in the daytime. 

 As this creature (which has been likened to a miniature model 

 of a serpent's skeleton) moves, serpent-like, forward or back- 

 ward, he leaves behind him, or before him, a tangible track 

 of the phosphoric light, which, in darkness, strongly illumin- 

 ates his unsightly form ; but, as if conscious of his loathly 

 aspect, it is mostly in daylight, when it is least conspicuous, 

 that he issues from his lair, some abode of darkness, either in 

 the earth, or beneath a stone. 



The Mole Cricket is another insect which has been sup- 

 posed to emit light ; to have been, indeed, in some cases, the 



* Scolopendra electrica. See Vignette. 



