CHAPTER XIII. 
nature’s night lights. 
{Remarks about Fireflies and other matters.) 
It was formerly supposed tliat the light of the fire- ^ 
fly (in any family possessing the luminous power) h 
was a safeguard against the attacks of other insects, 
rapacious and nocturnal in their habits. This was d 
Kirby and Spence’s notion, but it might just as well h 
be Pliny’s for all the attention it v;ould receive from ! 
modern entomologists : just at present any ob- 
server who lived in the pre -Darwin days is regarded ' 
as one of the ancients. The reasons given for the h 
notion or theory in the celebrated Introduction to I, 
Entomology were not conclusive; nevertheless it 
was not an improbable supposition of the authors’ ; 
wliile the theory which has taken its place in recent 
zoological writings seems in every way even less • 
satisfactory. 
Let us first examine the antiquated theory, as it 
must now be called. By bringing a raptorial insect 
and a firefly together, we find that the flashing light 
of the latter does actually scare away the former, 
and is therefore, for the moment, a protection as 
effectual as the camp-fire the traveller lights in a 
district abounding with beasts of prey. Hot with- 
