504 THE INSECT WORLD. 
the soirée, they make them take a bath, which refreshes them, 
and put them back again into the cage, which sheds during 
the whole night a soft: light in the chamber. In 1766, a 
Cucuyo, brought alive from America to Paris, probably in some 
old piece of wood which happened to be on the vessel, caused 
great terror to the inhabitants of the Faubourg St. Antoine, 
when they saw it flying in the evening, glittering in the air. 
In 1864, a number of Cucuyos were brought from Mexico 
to Paris by M. Laurent, captain of the frigate, La Floride. An 
experiment, made in the laboratory of the Ecole Normal, showed 
that the spectrum of their light is continuous, without any 
black rays; it differs, besides, from the spectrum of the solar 
light by a greater intensity of the yellow colour. The lght is 
produced probably as it is in the case of the Lampyris, by the 
slow combustion of a substance secreted by the animal. The 
Cucuyo can, nevertheless, at will, increase or diminish the 
splendour of this light by means of membranes which it super- 
poses, like sereens, in front of the phosphorescent bumps which it 
has on its thorax. 
In the Indies, and in China, the women use for dressing their 
hair with, or as ear-rings, another Coleopteron of the same tribe, 
which begins even to be employed for this purpose by the women 
of the south of France. It is a Buprestis, of splendid colours, 
and of metallic brightness. Linneus, as we said above, gave to 
it, wrongly, the name of Buprestis, which among the ancients 
served to designate a very different insect—the Meloé, of the 
family of the Cantharide ; but modern naturalists have allowed 
this illegitimate title. 
The Buprestide walk heavily, but fly with the greatest 
ease during the heat of the sun, and settle on the trunks 
of trees exposed to its rays. In Europe, and especially in the 
North, they are very rare, and of very small size. They must 
be looked for on birch trees, whose white colour seems to 
attract them. In the hottest parts of the world they are very 
abundant, of large .dimensions, and adorned with sparkling 
colours. They do not jump, and are not endowed with the phos- 
phorescent property. Their larve have no legs, are elongate, 
whitish, of a fleshy consistency, with the first ring of their bodies 
