662 Fire-Flies and their Phosphorescent Phenomena. [ October, 
THE FIRE-FLIES AND THEIR PHOSPHORESCENT 
PHENOMENA 
BY MRS. V. O. KING. 
HE most interesting feature distinguishing these insects is 
their phosphorescent qualities. Light, so universal in its influ- 
ences upon the life processes, and made familiar to us through 
the multiform media of its evolution, is known to result from a 
combustion of dead matter. To this known fact, Lampyris, 
creeping and flying, and at the same time emitting light, would 
seem to present a contradiction. 
This singular fact early attracted the attention of naturalists 
and philosophers. A traveler in Japan, about the middle of the 
15th century, studied its phenomena, discovering two kinds of 
light; and later, Mr. McCartney, by anatomical investigation, 
found two vesicles from which he supposed the more permanent 
light to proceed. Similar discoveries were made about the same 
time by a Polish naturalist. Many distinguished entomologists 
have given attention to the subject; even Arago studied the char- 
acter of the light in connection with that of the sun, and found 
it to exhibit the same species of refrangibility with the light of 
that body. 
Matteucci, who studied this phenomenon from a chemical 
standpoint, concluded that there was positively no phosphorus 
present in the luminous segments, and therefore accounted for the 
manifestation by other means. i 
rof. Pancerri of Naples, a few years since, concluded that — 
phosphorescence in animals is the result of oxidation of certain 
fatty material, composed partly of epithelial cells in a state of 
partial decomposition, a manifestation (as Draper also says) of 
dead matter only; due to a slow combustion by which vibrations 
are excited capable of transmitting luminous rays. This phos- 
phorescent substance, Pancerri finds secreted in glands in all 
cases except noctulica. 
1 The spectrum given by the light of the common fire-fly of New Hampshire 
(Photinus ?) was found by Prof. C. A. Young to be perfectly continuous, without 
trace of lines either bright or dark. It extends from a little above Fraunhofer’s line 
_ Cin the scarlet, to about F in the blue, gradually fading out at the extremities. This 
~ portion is composed of rays which, while they more powerfully than any others affect 
= the organs of vision, produce hardly any thermal or actinic effect; in other words, 
very little of the energy expended in the flash of the fire-fly is wasted. A. 
vung in anoa M Vol. iii, p. 615.—EDITORS. 
