'1866.] Notes and Queries. 73 
(Notes and Queries.) 
[Received 20th December, 1865. ] 
Camp, near Myanoung, November 22nd, 1865. 
During a visit to Calcutta a few months ago, Mr. Grote drew my 
attention to a sort of controversy which had been started at home, 
touching the habit, which fireflies were stated to exhibit occasionally, 
of a concurrent exhibition of their light, by vast multitudes acting in 
unison ; a statement which appeared to have been somewhat sceptically 
received. Mr. Grote does not appear to have ever witnessed this 
phenomenon in Bengal, and questioned me if I had ever observed any 
confirmatory instance. Fireflies are tolerably well known, of course, 
to the resident in Bengal, but I had never there observed any such 
habit among the countless fireflies, which form such fiery-like orna- 
ments to the shrubberies about Calcutta. In Pegu, however, I have 
witnessed the exhibition in question; myriads of fireflies emitting 
their light, and again relapsing into darkness, in the most perfect 
rythmic unison. I much regret, that I did not secure specimens, but 
the circumstances were as follows. I had halted my boat for the 
night, alongside a small clearing in the low lying tract of country, 
forming part of the Irawadi estuary (Delta), east of the Bassein 
river, where the water was salt, and the entire country not more than 
a foot, if so much, above the flood level. Night had closed in, and my 
servant, who brought in the tea, asked me to step out of my tent and 
see the fireflies which, he said, he had never seen the like of before. 
On stepping out of the tent, a truly beautiful sight presented it- 
self. In front was the broad and deep river sweeping on, vu«re 
eouxws, With its indistinctly seen background of primeval forest on 
its opposite bank. Around me was the recently-formed clearing, with 
its two or three huts and my own camp, as the sole proof of man’s 
occupancy, for miles and miles, but, for all the wildness and almost 
desolation of the scene, the bank on which I stood was a glorious 
spectacle, and those acquainted with the class of native servants 
will well understand that it must have been at once unusual and 
beautiful indeed to rivet the attention of a listless khitmutgar ! 
The bushes overhanging the water were one mass of fireflies, 
though, from the confined space available for them on low shrubs, the 
