FIKE-FLIES. 
103 
sparks, of various degrees of intensity, according to 
the size of the species, are to be seen, fitfully gleam- 
ing by scores about the margins of woods, and in 
open and cultivated places. About fourteen species 
have occurred to me, all luminous. Photuris versi- 
color, a large species with drab-coloured elytra, I 
found abroad soon after my arrival, in December. 
One flying around the house in the evening, I was 
struck with its swift and headlong flight and nearly 
permanent luminosity, which was much more bril- 
liant than that of any species which I had at that 
time seen. 
A large Pygolampis, which I have called P. xantho- 
photis, I did not meet with until May, when one flew 
into the house at Blueflelds in the evening ; and 
two nights afterwards I observed it rather numerous 
on the very sea-beach at Sabito. It was conspicuous 
for the intensity of its light, much exceeding that of 
Photuris versicolor. Sometimes it is only the last 
segment but two that shows luminosity; but when 
excited, the whole hinder part of the abdomen is 
lighted up with a dazzling glare. 
It is in the woods of St. Elizabeth’s, in the month 
of June, that I have seen the Lampyridce in their 
glory; and particularly along the road leading up 
the mountain from Shrewsbury to Content, where it 
is cut through the tall forest, which overhangs it on 
each side, making it sombre even by day, and casting 
glow-worm which is occasionally seen being no more comparable 
to that of the Elater than a dying oil-lamp to a jet of pure gas ” ( Tr. 
Ent. Soc. I. xlvi.), I can by no means confirm. 
