Fireflies. 



By Lady Blake, Jamaica, 



|IGHT is always in itself beautiful and attraftive. 

 It would be difficult or impossible to imagine 

 a light that would be ugly or repulsive. Even 

 a tallow dip flickering in the window of a hovel, sends a 

 thrill of pleasure and comfort through the breast of the 

 traveller toiling across some lonely bog or through a 

 gloomy forest, and it is difficult to realize that the glow 

 of the will-o'-the-wisp ought to be shunned and not 

 followed. But if inaminate light is beautiful and wonder- 

 ful, how surpassingly lovely and astonishing are those 

 living creatures whose bodies are temples not alone of 

 life, but of a6lual light. The glow-worm, common and 

 lowly inse6l as it is, never fails to attra6l the attention 

 of a passer by, though few probably, pause to refleft 

 over the marvel of the little hedge-row Hero untiringly 

 showing a light to guide the tiny winged Leander to her 

 bower. The life history of the glow-worm is well-known, 

 and from the poetical point of view, except to a gardener, 

 it is somewhat disappointing to know that both the 

 larva and perfeft inse6l are predatory and feed upon 

 snails. The male inse6t, though generally supposed to 

 be non-luminous, emits a certain amount of light, though 

 in a far less degree than the wingless female. Even the 

 eggs of the beetle are said to be luminous. The English 

 poets from Shakespeare downwards are fond of asso- 

 ciating glow-worms with fairies and spirits. In the 

 '• Merry Wives of Windsor" when Falstaff is tor- 



