114 THE INSECT WORLD. 
valleys of Guyana. During the two years she sojourned in these 
dangerous parts, she made a large collection of drawings and 
paintings, which were destined to inaugurate in Hurope the intro- 
duction of art into natural history. 
In the plates to her work, Sybille de Mérian represents always 
the insect she wishes to describe under its three forms of larva, 
pupa, and perfect insect. With this drawing she gives another of 
the plants which serve the insect for food, as also of the animals 
which prey on it. Each plate is a little drama. Near the insect 
is seen the greedy lizard opening its dreadful mouth, or the fero- 
cious spider watching for it. The short life of insects is shown 
here in its entirety, with its continual struggles, its infinite arti- 
fices, its rapid end, and all the episodes of its existence, for which 
life, as in the case of the moral man, is but a long and painful 
struggle. | 
Such was the work, such were the noble devotion and the worthy 
career of Sybille de Mérian. Let women, let young girls, who are 
martyrs to the ennui of a life devoid of occupation, peruse her 
beautiful book, and learn from it how much a woman may do 
with the time which is now either utterly unoccupied or only 
devoted to useless employments. To study nature, in any of 
its phases, ought, it seems to us, to give more satisfaction to the 
soul, more strength to the mind, and cause more admiration of, 
and gratitude to, the supreme Author of nature, than doing a little 
embroidery. _ 
It is, as we have already said, in the work of Sybille de Mérian, 
‘“‘Métamorphoses des Insectes de Surinam,” that one-finds men- 
tioned, for the first time, the luminous properties of the Pulgora 
lanternaria. The author thus relates her observations, which 
were the result of chance :— 
“Some Indians having one day brought me a great number 
of the Lantern Flies. I shut them up ina large box, not knowing 
then that they gave light at night. Hearing a noise, I sprang 
out of bed and had a candle brought. I very soon discovered 
that the noise proceeded from the box, which I hurriedly opened ; 
but, alarmed at seeing emerging from it a flame, or, to speak 
more correctly, as many flames as there were insects, I at first 
let it fall. Having recovered from my astonishment, or rather 
