338 



LUMINOUS INSECTS. 



curved at the apex, above an inch in length, and the thick- 

 ness of a small quill. In F. laternaria, which is an insect 

 two or three inches long, the snout is much larger and broader, 

 and more of an oval shape, and sheds a light the brilliancy 

 of which is said to transcend that of any other luminous in- 

 sect. Madame Merian informs us, that the first discovery 

 which she made of this property caused her no small alarm. 

 The Indians had brought her several of these insects, which 

 by day-light exhibited no extraordinary appearance, and she 

 inclosed them in a box until she should have an opportunity 

 of drawing them, placing it upon a table in her lodging-room. 

 In the middle of the night the confined insects made such a 

 noise as to awake her, and she opened the box, the inside of 

 which to her great astonishment appeared all in a blaze ; and 

 in her fright letting it fall, she was not less surprised to see 

 each of the insects apparently on fire. She soon, however, 

 divined the cause of this unexpected phenomenon, and re- 

 inclosed her brilliant guests in their place of confinement. 

 She adds, that the light of one of these Fulgora is sufficiently 

 bright to read a newspaper by : and though the tale of her 

 having drawn one of these insects by its own light is with- 

 out foundation, she doubtless might have done so if she had 

 chosen. 1 



1 Ins. Sur. 49. — The above account of the luminous properties of Fulgora 

 laternaria is given, because negative evidence ought not hastily to be allowed to 

 set aside facts positively asserted by an author who could have no conceiv- 

 able motive for inventing such a fable ; but it is necessary to state, that not only 

 have several of the inhabitants of Cayenne, according to the French Dictionnaire 

 d'Histoire Naturelle, denied that this insect shines, in which denial they are 

 joined by M. Richard, who reared the species {Encyclopedic, art. Fulgora), but 

 the learned and accurate Count HofFmansegg informs us, that his insect collector 

 Sieber, a practised entomologist of thirty years' standing, and who, when in the 

 Brazils for some years, took many specimens, affirms that he never saw a single 

 one in the least luminous. (Z)er Gesellschaft Naturf. Fr. zu Berlin Mag. i. 153.) 

 On the other hand M. Lacordaire states, that though he never saw a luminous 

 individual of this species, either in Brazil or Cayenne, and though the majority 

 of the inhabitants of the latter country whom he questioned on the subject equally 

 denied its being luminous, yet that others asserted the fact ; and as he himself, 

 a cautious observer on the spot, asks if this contradictory testimony may not be 

 reconciled by supposing that one of the sexes is luminous and the other not, it 

 seems clearly best to infer with this acute entomologist, that the luminosity of 

 Fulgora laternaria is a point rather requiring new observations than yet abso- 

 lutely decided either way (Introd. a V Ent. ii. 143. ), especially when we find 

 the Marquis Spinola, in his elaborate paper on this tribe in the Ann. Soc. Ent. de 

 France (viii. 163.), strongly contending for the luminous character of the cepha- 

 lic protuberance of the whole tribe, and when moreover a friend of M. Wesmael 

 assured him that he had himself seen F. laternaria luminous when alive. {West- 



