110 ON THE LUMINOSITY 



who says, " Fulgora candelaria is very abundant in China ; 

 and it is next to impossible that their luminosity, if real, would 

 have escaped the notice," &c Now, as not one writer or 

 traveller has ever seen Fulgora candelaria alive, but only in 

 boxes, and spitted on long needles, it is extremely probable 

 that its luminosity would have escaped notice; at least, so it 

 appears to me. I came here, not as a speaker, but as a 

 listener; and I came, moreover, prepared to adopt what I 

 considered the inevitable course of exchanging our old lamp, 

 as in the story of Aladdin, for a new. I know well the 

 opinion of the present and late Editors ; and I know that that 

 opinion was against the luminosity of our insect ; my surprise 

 was therefore a most agreeable surprise, when I found that 

 opinion totally unsupported by the information which they 

 had brought to bear on the subject. It is, therefore, with no 

 view of supporting my own ideas — for you will recollect, Sir, 

 the design of the fire-fly, and its accompanying motto, was my 

 own — against the united voices of reason and truth, but from a 

 sincere wish to establish truth by deferring the decision until 

 we shall have incontestible evidence before us, that I now 

 press the amendment. To me it has appeared very singular 

 that these gentlemen should have shown so great a reluctance 

 in approaching the real subject of inquiry. I had anticipated 

 that they would have proved, beyond a possibility of doubt, 

 that our emblem was an emblem of error, and our motto a motto 

 devoid of meaning. But they shun the inquiry. Like the fisher- 

 man, who sailed his lugger round the very brink of Charybdis, 

 avoiding with infinite dexterity the whirlpool that must inevi- 

 tably have annihilated him, they have drawn a circle round the 

 object of our inquiry, but carefully avoided making a nearer 

 approach to it — for approach had surely been fatal — than the 

 circumference of the circle which they have drawn. No one 

 has been more delighted than myself in listening to the truly 

 eloquent speech of the author of the Letters of Delta ; — elo- 

 quent, because so pregnant with knowledge ; and my delight 

 has been the more ardent, because that brilliant speech has 

 not dimmed for an instant the lustre of our fire-fly lamp. 



In the extract which you read from Kirby and Spence, you 

 must have observed, Sir, a very remarkable omission, and one 

 for which it appears difficult to account, especially in the work 

 of authors so scrupulously attentive to veracity and accuracy : 



