424 THE WEST INDIAN FIRE BEETLE. 
faculty with which animals are endowed by the Creator; and 
this phenomenon is produced by an act of volition of the 
animal, through the nervous power acting on a peculiar fatty 
matter, found only in certain portions of the body: or it may 
- be that some of the brain masses, or ganglia, are specially 
appropriated to this particular end, and that there need be 
nothing peculiar in the fatty mass upon which its power is 
expended. 2 j 
At the head of the list of light-giving creatures, and far ex- 
ceeding them all in the amount and intensity of its phospho- 
rescence, stands the West Indian Fire Beetle, called by the | 
people of the islands, Cucuyo; by naturalists they are known 
as the Hlater (Pyrophorus) noctilucus, or Night-lighting Ela- 
ter. Though found in all the West Indian islands, the sugat 
plantations of Cuba are their paradise, and during the wam — 
evenings of the rainy season they exhibit themselves to pe 
fection. An amusing account of the method of capturing 
these beetles in olden times is found in the Naturalist’s Li- 
brary, which I copy for the amusement of the reader. : | 
“Whoso wanteth Cucuij,” says Pietro Martire, in his De- 
cades of the New World, “goeth out of the house in the first ; 
twilight of the night, carrying a burning fire-brande ba his : 
hande, and ascendeth the next hillock, that the cucul) may 
see it, and hee-swingeth the fire-brande about, calling ouc 
ius aloud and beateth the ayre with often calling and me ; 
out cucute, cucuie. Many simple people supposè that p - 
cucuij, delighted with the noise, come flying and a : 
together to the bellowing sound of him that calleth os : 
they come with a speedy and headlong course; but ha 
thinke that the cucuij make haste to the brightness ee 
fire-brande, because swarms of gnattes fly into every md : 
which the cucuij eat in the very ayre, as the martie 
swallowes doe. Some cucuius sometimes followeth P 
brande, and lighteth on the grounde ; then he is we pe 
as travellers may take a beetle if they have need an 
walking with his wings shut. In sport and merriment, a 

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