412 LUMINOUS INSECTS. 
three last ventral segments of the abdomen*; I shall 
give you the result of some observations I once made 
upon this subject. One evening, in the beginning of 
July, meeting with two of these insects, I placed them 
on my hand. At first their light was exceedingly bril- 
liant, so as to appear even at the junctions of the upper 
or dorsal segments of the abdomen. Soon after I had 
taken them, one withdrew its light altogether, but the 
other continued to shine. “While it did this it was laid 
upon its back, the abdomen forming an angle with the 
rest of its body, and the last or anal segment being kept 
in constant motion. This segment was distinguished by 
two round and very vivid spots of light; which, in the 
specimen that had ceased to shine, were the last that 
disappeared, and they seem to be the first parts that be- 
come luminous when the animal is disposed to yield its 
light. ‘The penultimate and antepenultimate segments 
each exhibited a middle transverse band of yellow radi- 
ance, terminated towards the trunk by an obtusely- 
dentated line; a greener and fainter light being emitted 
by the rest of the segment. 
Though many of the females of the different species 
of Lampyris are without wings and even elytra, (in 
which circumstance they differ from all other apterous 
Coleoptera,) this is not the case with all. The female 
of L. italica, a species common in Italy, and which, if 
we may trust to the accuracy of the account given by 
Mr. Waller in the Philosophical Transactions for 1684, 
would seem to have been taken by him in Hertfordshire, 
is winged : and when a number of these moving stars are 
seen to dart through the air in a dark night, nothing can 
@ Geoffr. 1. 167. De Geer, iv. 35. 
