102 
CONTENT. 
season, the drops, depending from every twig, and 
lying in globules in the hollows of the leaves, both 
reflect and refract the beam, like thousands of dia- 
monds. 
I have said that the interior of the forest is veiled 
in the deepest gloom, concealing every object ; but 
this is true only of such objects as depend for their 
visibility on external light. The very depth of the 
darkness only makes more perceptible some objects 
there, which shine by their own proper radiance. 
Here and there, all around, among the trees and 
shrubs, little lights are flitting along a few feet above 
the ground, which the beholder can scarcely persuade 
himself are not candles borne about by some human 
inhabitants of the forest. These are Fire-flies, species 
of the same family (Lampyridce) as the Glow-worm of 
our own summer evenings, but in many instances far 
exceeding it in lustre. There are other lights, how- 
ever, which surpass the brightest of these ; a red 
glare dashes by with headlong rapidity along the 
grassy edges of the woods, now concealed, then 
flaming out again, which we at once see to be of 
a superior character to the sparks of the woods. 
This also is the torch of an insect {Pyrophorus me- 
tilucus), to which I shall give the English appellation 
of Glow-fly a beetle of the family Elateridce, To 
each of these families I shall devote a few remarks. 
The Lampyridce are, in Jamaica, far more abundant 
than Pyrophorus noctilucus,^ At all times, their 
* Mr. Sells’ statement, that the splendid luminous spectacle in 
Jamaica is produced exclusively by the ElaUridx^ the light of the 
