288 NATURE AND WOODCRAFT. 



and hundreds of living lights lit up the sward. 

 In the intense darkness these shone with an 

 unusual brillancy, and lit up the almost impal- 

 pable moisture. Every foot of ground was 

 studded with its star-like gem, and these 

 twinkled and shone as the fire-flies stirred in 

 the grass. The sight was quite an un-English 

 one, and the soft green lights only paled at 

 the coming of day. One phase of this interest- 

 ing phenomenon is that now we can have 

 a reproduction nightly. The fire-flies were 

 collected, turned down on the lawn, and their 

 hundred luminous lamps now shed a soft lustre 

 over all the green. 



Why our British fire-flies are designated 

 '■' glow-worms " is difficult to understand. 

 Lampyris noctiluca has nothing worm-like about 

 it. It is a true insect. The popular misconcep- 

 tion has probably arisen in this wise. The 

 female glow-worm, the light-giver, is wingless ; 

 the male is winged. The latter, however, has 

 but little of the light-emitting power possessed 

 by the female. Only the light-givers are 

 collected, and being destitute of the first 

 attribute of an insect — wings, are set down 

 in popular parlance as worms. Old mossy 



