LUMINOUS INSECTS. 541 



On certain festival days, in the month of June, they are collected in great 

 numbers, and tied all over the garments of the young people, who gallop 

 through the streets on horses similarly ornamented, producing on a dark 

 evening the effect of a large moving body of light. On such occasions 

 the lover displays his gallantry by decking his mistress with these living 

 gems.^ And according to P. Marti re, " many wanton wilde fellowes" 

 rub their faces with the flesh of a killed Cucuius, as boys with us use 

 phosphorus, " with purpose to meet their neighbors with a flaming coun- 

 tenance," and derive amusement from their fright. 



Besides Elater noctilucus, E. ignitus and several others of the same 

 genus are luminous. Not fewer than twelve species of this family are 

 described by Illiger in the Berlin Naturalist Societi/s Magazine^, under 

 the name of Pyrophorus ; and at least seventy species are now known, 

 all natives of the hot and temperate regions of America, from Chili to 

 the south of the United States, where they are to be seen almost the 

 whole year at the approach of night, both the sexes being equally 

 luminous."* 



The brilliant nocturnal spectacle presented by these insects to the 

 inhabitants of the countries where they abound cannot be better described 

 than in the language of the poet above referred to, who has thus related 

 its first effect upon the British visitors of the new world : — 



" Sorrowing we beheld 



The night come on ; but soon did night display 

 More wonders than it veil'd : innumerous tribes 

 From the wood-cover swarm 'd, and darkness made 

 Their beauties visible : one while they stream'd 

 A bright blue radiance upon flowers that closed 

 Their gorgeous colors from the eye of day ; 

 Now motionless and dark, eluded search, 

 Self-shrouded ; and anon, starring the sky, 

 Rose like a shower of fire." 



The beautiful poetical imagery with which Mr. Southey has decorated 

 this and a few other entomological facts, will make you join in my regret 

 that a more extensive acquaintance with the science has not enabled him 

 to spread his embellishments over a greater number. The gratification 

 which the entomologist derives from seeing his favorite study adorned 

 with the graces of poetry is seldom unalloyed with pain, arising from the 

 inaccurate knowledge of the subject in the poet. Dr. Darwin's descrip- 

 tion of the beetle to which the nut-maggot is transformed may delight him 

 (at least if he be an admirer of the Darwinian style) as he reads for the 

 first time, 



" So sleeps in silence the Curculio, shut 



In the dark chamber of the cavern'd nut ; 



Erodes with ivory beak the vaulted shell, 



And quits on filmy wings its narrow cell." 



But when the music of the lines has allowed him room for pause, and he 



rous exceptions we are constantly finding occur to all such supposed general rules, it seems 

 premature to reject on such grounds the very circumstantial details of P. Marlire. In the 

 same way as some of the Carahidce and Coccinellida: have been ascertained to feed on vege- 

 table food, though both families are in general carnivorous, it may be found that some of 

 the Elateridce prefer an animal diet and will eat gnats. 



» Walton's Present State of the Spanish Colonies, i. 128. ' Jahrgang, i. 141. 



' Lacordaire, Introd. d VEntom. ii. 140. See Dr. Germar's monograph on this genus, 

 containing descriptioas of seventy-nine species, in the Zeitschr. f. d. Ent. vol. iii. (1841.) 



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