1866.] Notes and Queries. 73 



(Notes and Queries.') 

 [Received 20th December, 1865.] 

 Camp, near Myanoung, Novemher 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, wktl 

 coikws, with its indistinctly seen background of primaeval 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 w T ere one mass of fireflies, 

 though, from the confined spaca available for them on low shrubs, the 



