1865.]' Notes and Queries: 191 
Mr. Clark added that, though he was utterly unable to give any 
explanation of the phenomenon, he could so far corroborate Mr. Ca- 
meron as to say that he had himself observed this simultaneous flash- 
ing; he had a vivid recollection of a particular glen in the Organ 
Mountains, where he had on several occasions noticed the contempora- 
neous exhibition and extinction of their light by numerous indivi- 
duals, as if they were acting in concert. 
Mr. McLachlan suggested that this might be caused by currents of 
wind, which, by inducing a number of the insects simultaneously to 
change the direction of their flight, might occasion a momentary con- 
cealment of their light. 
Mr. Bates had never in his experience received the impression of 
any simultaneous flashing ; on the contrary, he thought there was the 
greatest possible irregularity in giving and extinguishing the light, 
and that no concert or connexion existed between different individuals ; 
he regarded the contemporaneous flashing as an illusion, produced pro- 
bably by the swarms of the insects flying amongst foliage, and being 
continually, but only momentarily, hidden behind the leaves. Mr. 
Bates further remarked that the light-emitting insects were Lampy- 
ride, not Elateride (Pyrophori), which rarely flew by night; the 
Lampyride had a weak vacillating flight, the number of species was 
very large, and he had himself found eighty or ninety species ; several 
species would flit about together, and in the squares of Para he had 
captured three distinct species; it would be curious if there were any 
concert or action in unison between individuals of different species. 
Mr. Clark remarked that the lights of the Lampyride and Elateride 
were perfectly distinguishable; it was the former which gave the 
intermittent flashing light. 
Mr. W. W. Saunders had frequently observed the fire-flies in Ben- 
gal, at Pondicherry and at Madras; they usually flew at a height of 
ten to fifteen or twenty feet, amongst the foliage; he had never noticed 
any flashing or regularity of intermission, and thought that each indi- 
vidual was perfectly irregular, and independent in the exhibition or 
extinction of its light. 
_ M. Sallé (who was present as a visitor) had never observed any 
flashing or regular intermittency, or simultaneous emission or extinc- 
tion of the light. 
