410 LUMINOUS INSECTS. 
their motions, while it is incapable of burning; and 
whose lustre is maintained without needing fresh sup- 
plies of oil or the application of the snuffers. 
Of the insects thus singularly provided, the common 
glow-worm (Lampyris noctiluca) is the most familiar in- 
stance. Who that has ever enjoyed the luxury of a 
summer evening’s walk in the country, in the southern 
parts of our island, but has viewed with admiration 
these ‘stars of the earth and diamonds of the night?” 
And if, living like me in a district where it is rarely 
met with, the first time you saw this insect, chanced 
to be, as it was in my case, one of those delightful 
evenings which an English summer seldom yields, when 
not a breeze disturbs the balmy air, and “ every sense 
is joy,” and hundreds of these radiant worms, studding 
their mossy couch with mild effulgence, were presented 
to your wondering eye in the course of a quarter of a 
mile,—you could not help associating with the name of 
glow-worm the most pleasing recollections. No wonder 
that an insect, which chiefly exhibits itself on occasions 
so interesting, and whose economy is so remarkable, 
should have afforded exquisite images and illustrations 
to those poets who have cultivated Natural History. 
If you take one of these glow-worms home with you 
for examination, you will find that in shape it some- 
what resembles a caterpillar, only that it is much more 
depressed ; and you will observe that the light proceeds 
from a pale-coloured patch that terminates the underside 
of the abdomen. It is not, however, the larva of an 
insect, but the perfect female of a winged beetle, from 
which it is altogether so different, that nothing but ac- 
tual observation could have inferred the fact of their 
