

THE WEST INDIAN FIRE BEETLE. 431 
cannot omit to give the reader an extract from a letter 
from Cuba which I have just met with, by a most pleasing 
writer,* which gives a vivid description of this insect as seen 
in its native island. The writer, after a most amusing ac- 
count of several insects with which she (?) came in contact, 
says : 
“But a really beautiful and interesting insect is the Co- 
cuyo, or famous fire-fly of the West Indies, two of which I 
now have on my table in an impromptu cage, where they 
have been domesticated for a week. Very docile are they 
in my hands, to whose touch they seem to have become 
pleasantly accustomed, taking kindly to a diet of moist sugar 
in lieu of sugar-cane, which is their appropriate aliment, and 
accepting a semi-daily bath in my wash-basin with great 
apparent enjoyment, floating about in the water for several 
that they are ready to come out. They are a sufficiently 
unattractive bug in their unilluminated state, being of a 
dingy earth-brown color, and about the shape and size of a 
: large cockroach ; but they become so glorified by the irradi- 
_ ition of those wondrous orbs of phosphorescent light which 
: they carry about on their shoulders, that the children scream 
With delight at the sight of them, and ladies make pets of 
em as I do, and even use them as ornaments, on some 
Occasions. I saw a lady at the ‘Retreta’ once, with a coro- 
: het and stomacher of them; and all the crown jewels of 
Spain could not have made her so resplendent. The light is 
‘hot a flash, seen for a moment and then gone, like our fire- 
i ily, but it is emitted in a brilliant, steady ray, at will, and is 
: of extreme beauty of tint, being of a slightly greenish yel- 
dow Viewed in some positions, and of pale red viewed in 
edt ism touching fact, that the poorer classes, when 
_ Severe sickness Visits their dwellings, confine.a half-dozen of 
a “e Cucuyos in a cage, and are thus furnished with a most 
 autiful and inexpensive light for night-watchings.” 
; | SE NEES ikea O han SPEER ae Rs ea 
*W.M. L Jay, in “ The Ch h » of June 13, 1868. 

