340 



LUMINOUS INSECTS. 



sphcerocerus. 1 A similar appearance has been noticed in the 

 eyes of Acronycta Psi, Cossus ligniperda, and other moths ; 

 and M. Audouin stated to the Entomological Society of 

 France that a Russian naturalist (M. Gimmerthal) had observed 

 the caterpillars of Noctua (Polio) occulta to be luminous. 2 

 This observation as to another species has been confirmed by 

 Dr. Boisduval, who one evening of the hot days of June found 

 on the stems of grass caterpillars which spread a phosphores- 

 cent light, and which he thought were those of Mamestra ole- 

 racea, though they seemed larger than common ; and whether 

 from want of care, or that their luminosity depended on dis- 

 ease, none of them assumed the pupa state. They certainly, 

 he says, were not the larvae of Polia occulta.^ 



But besides the insects here enumerated, others may be lu- 

 minous which have not hitherto been suspected of being so. 

 This seems proved by the following fact. A learned friend 4 

 has informed me, that when he was curate of Ickleton, Cam- 

 bridgeshire, in 1780, a farmer of that place of the name of 

 Simpringham brought to him a mole-cricket ( Gryllotalpa vul- 

 garis Latr.) and told him that one of his people, seeing a 

 Jack-o 'lantern, pursued it and knocked it down, when it 

 proved to be this insect, and the identical specimen shown to 

 him. 



This singular fact, while it renders it probable that some 

 insects are luminous which no one has imagined to be so, 

 seems to afford a clue to the, at least, partial explanation of 

 the very obscure subject of ignes fatui, and to show that there 

 is considerable ground for the opinion long ago maintained by 

 Kay and Willughby, that the majority of these supposed me- 

 teors are no other than luminous insects. That the large 

 varying lambent flames, mentioned by Beccaria to be very 

 common in some parts of Italy, and the luminous globe seen 

 by Dr. Shaw 5 cannot be thus explained, is obvious. These 

 were probably electrical phenomena : certainly not explosions 



1 Linn. Trans, iv. 261 . Mr. Westwood, however, in his monograph on this 

 genus, attributes this rather to the action of the light upon the highly polished 

 surface of the spherical club of the antenna?. 



2 Ann. Soc. Ent. de France, i. 424. 3 Silbermann, Rev. Entom. i. 226. 

 4 Rev. Dr. Sutton of Norwich. 5 Travels, 2d ed. 334. 



