242 THE BUTTERFLY VIVARIUM. 



bachelor must sink into the mere rushlight of the 

 invalid;* and thus, with the advance of science, 

 many a pretty fable loses both its poetry and point, 

 and becomes neglected and forgotten. 



In the time of Gilbert White, however, entomo- 

 logical science had not yet stripped the Glow-worm 

 of her raiment of poetry, and the concluding lines 

 of a little poem that he addressed to a brother 

 naturalist — the celebrated Pennant — are so neatly 

 turned that I cannot resist the temptation of quot- 

 ing them here : — 



"The dulling night-dews fall: away, retire, 

 For see, the Glow-worm lights her amorous fire ! 

 Thus, ere night's veil had half obscured the sky, 

 Th' impatient damsel hung her lamp on high ; 

 True to the signal, by love's meteor led, 

 Leander hasteu'd to his Hero's bed." 



It will not be uninteresting to follow the sug- 

 gestion thus accidentally struck out by the poet of 

 Selborne, which infers, though vaguely, the ex- 

 istence of some analogy between the Greek story of 

 Hero and Leander » and the fable of the Glow-worm. 



I believe that we have actually, in the story 

 of the lovers of Sestos and Abydos, a somewhat 



* It has been observed that the female Glow-worm in the 

 height of the summer season extinguishes her light at about 

 half-past eleven o'clock. 



