SAM0UEL1 F. S 



cribes, as Sitting about a thistle, was, though he 

 seems of a different opinion, no other than some 

 luminous insect I have little doubt. Mr. Sheppard 

 informs me that, travelling one night between Stam- 

 ford and Grantham, on the top of the stage, be ob- 

 served for more than ten minutes, a very large ignis 

 fatuus in the low marshy mound, which had every 

 appearance of an insect. The wind was very high ; 

 consequently bad it been a vapour, it must have been 

 curried forward in a direct line ; but this was not 

 the case. It had the same motions as a Tipula, Hy- 

 ing upwards and downwards, backwards and for- 

 wards, Bometiraes appearing as settled and some- 

 times hovering in the air. — Whatever be the true 

 nature of these meteors, of which so much is said 

 and so little known, it is singular bow few modern 

 instances of their having been observed are on re- 

 cord. INI r. Darwin declares, that though in the 

 course of a long life he had been out at night, and 

 in places where they are said to appear, times with- 

 out number, he bad never seen any thing of the 

 kind : and from the silence of other philosophers of 

 our own times, it should seem that their experience 

 is similar. 



