240 THE BUTTERFLY VIVARIUM. 



having completed their development, emerge from 

 the pupa or nymphine state. At that season the 

 females may be seen displaying their glowing spark 

 of seeming fire in the mossy banks, wbile the males, 

 in dim twilight, carry their little lanterns of paler 

 light through the warm evening air, often flying 

 together in considerable numbers. 



At Eastcote, in the summer of 1856, while 

 sitting in the drawing-room of a friend's house, 

 about ten o'clock in the evening, we observed a 

 great number of seeming sparks, of a pale bluish 

 colour, that seemed to be driven towards the open 

 window by the warm night wind. They came posi- 

 tively into the room, and appeared for a moment to 

 fill the whole space, and were then suddenly extin- 

 guished ; and the next instant the white table-cloth 

 of the supper-table, my friend's shirt-front and my 

 own, and every other light object were covered with 

 swarms of a small narrow Beetle, which I at once 

 recognized as the male Glow-worm. 



During our Avalks that season, the female Glow- 

 worms were very plentiful along the banks, espe- 

 cially in a lane leading from Eastbury to Watford, 

 and we collected a great number, which were placed 

 upon a range of artificial rock in my garden, when 



