HEMIPTERA. 



insects known to them.* Some of the males, which are furnished with wings and are 

 illuminated like the females, were striking objects of natural history, and could scarcely 

 have escaped their notice. The Greeks included all shining insects under the name 

 lampyns ; and the Latins called them cicindela, noctiluca, luciola, lucernata, &c. 

 Whether any of the Fulgora were known to the ancients is uncertain ; probably they 

 were not, the most remarkable species being peculiar to the warmest parts of America. 

 Asia, once the seat of learning, does indeed produce a few species ; but we have no 

 account of these in ancient natural history. 



The Fulgora; seem to have been entirely unknown in Europe till the latter end of the 

 seventeenth century, when two writers published descriptions and figures of Fulgora 

 Laternaria ; Madame Merian, of Holland, in her splendid work on the Metamorphoses 

 of the Insects of Surinam, and Dr. Grew, of London, in his Rarities of Gresham 

 College. 



Reaumurf is the next author who described the Fulgora Laternaria, and after him 

 Roesel, in his " Amusing History (or Recreation) of Insects. "J This brings us to the 

 period in which Fulgora Candelaria, our Chinese species, was first known in Europe ; a 

 circumstance of much importance to naturalists at that time, because the first-mentioned 

 species was a solitary example of its singular genus. The transactions of the Stockholm 

 academy includes the earliest figure and description of this extraordinary insect. 



Roesel has given three figures and a description of it, and from his account we learn 

 that it was known in England before he was acquainted with it. On its peculiar 

 qualities he had been unable to derive any information concerning it, but his description 

 is notwithstanding extremely prolix. We have selected the most interesting passage, 

 because it clearly marks the progressive advancement of the knowledge of natural history 

 in Europe so late as the middle of the present century. 



" According to my promise," says Roesel, § " I now produce the second sort of 

 Lantern-carrier, which I never saw before, and of which I have never read in any work 

 on insects. The scarcer, however, it may be, the more I am indebted to Mr. Beurer, 

 apothecary of this place,|| &c. for the permission he has granted me to draw and enrich 

 my collection with it. Mr. Collinson has sent it to him from London, under the name 



* The lampyris of Pliny is expressly the insect with a shining tail, 

 f Memoires pour servir a 1'Histoire des Insectes. 1734. 

 X Inseeten Belustigung. 



% Versprochener massen liefere ich nunmehr die zweite Soite des Lanternen-Tragers, &c. Vol. i. pi. 30. 

 Locust, page 189. 

 || Nurenberg. 



