160 



Insects. 



Note on an Electric Centipede. About eleven o'clock on the night of 

 the 23rd instant, I observed on the pathway of my garden a little blue 

 gleam, like that of the glow-worm. Taking it for granted to be that 

 insect, though wondering to find it in such a situation, I approached 

 it. On stooping down 1 saw that the light was motionless, of an ob- 

 long form, about as large as a small kidney -bean. I could feel no 

 insect, but picked up the luminous substance with my fingers, and 

 placed it in my hand, where it still shone, although less brilliantly. 

 Some of the luminous matter remained on the earth, disturbed and 

 somewhat scattered by my fingers ; over this the light played fitfully 

 for a few seconds, and then gradually went out. On bringing in my 

 capture to the candle, I could at first discover nothing but a pinch of 

 damp earth ; but presently observed a very common-looking, slender, 

 almost white, centipede, crawling on my fingers, on which I doubted 

 not that I saw, for the first time in my life, the electric centipede [Sco- 

 lopendra electrica). I placed the insect in a box, and carried it into 

 a dark room, but there was now not the slightest radiance ; this, how- 

 ever, I have observed in the splendid fireflies of America [Lampyris 

 corusca, &c.), whose light soon wanes, and is rarely renewed, in cap- 

 tivity. The next morning I put some damp sand in the bottom of a 

 drinking- glass, on which I allowed my prisoner his parole, having 

 first ascertained, however, that he could not crawl on perpendicular 

 glass. I threw in a dead fly or two, on the juices of whose bodies I 

 thought I once detected him in the act of feeding. Night came, but 

 no luminosity ; another, but all was dark ; when I began to think I 

 might have missed the true cause of the light after all, and that the 

 presence of this centipede was merely accidental. He had been, how- 

 ever, slightly injured by the lid of the box at first. At last I thought 

 that excitement might produce its light, and remembering the impa- 

 tience and apparent distress that I have often seen manifested by in- 

 ects when under the human breath, I breathed strongly on the centi- 

 pede, and was pleased to see that it instantly became luminous through 

 its whole length, writhing and throwing itself about in violent contor- 

 tions, though at other times very inert. It quickly became dark again, 

 and on repeating the experiment I found its influence became less and 

 less, until it soon ceased to be affected at all by the breath : but after 

 the lapse of another day and night, my breathing produced the same 

 results as at first. — P. H. Gosse ; Hackney, March, 1843. 



