COLEOPTERA. 503 
shining on the neighbouring trees for the matches of the arque- 
buses ready to fire. ‘In these countries,” says M. Michelet, “ one 
travels much by night, to escape from the 
heat. But one would not dare to plunge 
into the peopled shades of the deep forests 
if these insects did not reassure the traveller. 
He sees them shining afar off, dancing, twist- 
ing about; he sees them near at hand on 
the bushes by his side; he takes them with 
him; he fixes them on his boots, so that 
they may show him his road and put to, flight 
the serpents ; but when the sun rises, grate- 
fully and carefully he places them on a 
shrub, and restores them to their amorous. Fig. 552.—The Cucuyo 
occupations. It is a beautiful Indian pro- aN Uicca): 
verb. that says, ‘Carry away the fire-fly, but restore it from 
whence thou tookest it.’”»* The Creole women make use of 
the Cucuyos to increase the splendour of their toilettes. Strange 
jewels! which must: be fed, which must be bathed twice a 
day, and must be incessantly taken care of, to prevent them 
from dying. The Indians catch these insects by balancing hot 
coals in the air, at the end of a stick, to attract them, which 
proves that the light which these insects diffuse is to attract. 
Once in the hands of the women, the Cucuyos are shut up in 
little cages of very fine wire, and fed on fragments of sugar- 
cane. When the Mexican ladies wish to adorn themselves 
with these living diamonds, they place them in little bags of 
light tulle, which they arrange with taste on their skirts. There 
is another way of mounting the Cucuyos. They pass a pin, 
without hurting them, under the thorax, and stick this pin in 
their hair. The refinement of elegance consists in combining with 
the Cucuyos, humming-birds and real diamonds, which produce 
a dazzling head-dress. Sometimes, imprisoning these animated 
flames in gauze, the graceful Mexican women twist them into 
ardent necklaces, or else roll them round their waists, like a fiery 
girdle. They go to the ball under a diadem of living topazes, of 
animated emeralds, and this diadem blazes or pales according as 
the insect is fresh or fatigued. When they return home, after 
* <““T7Imsecte.”” 

