402 The Animal-Lore of Shahspeare*s Time. 
The mistake of placing the light in the glow-worm’s 
eyes, instead of its tail, has been commented on by Dr. 
Johnson, and defended by Monck Mason, who writes:— 
“Surely a poet is justified in calling the luminous part of the glow¬ 
worm the eye : it is a liberty we take in plain prose ; for the point of 
greatest brightness in a furnace is commonly called the eye of it.” 
It may be observed that as the furnace has no real 
eyes to begin with, no confusion is likely to ensue from 
such an expression. Another very excusable error, as to 
the sex of the insect, occurs in the speech of the Ghost in 
Hamlet :— 
“ The glow-worm shows the matin to be near. 
And ’gins to pale his uneffectual fire.” 
{Hamlet, i. 5, 89.) 
Spirits cannot be expected to trouble themselves about 
minute entomological details; besides, the relationship of 
the male winged beetle to the crawling luminous female 
was not commonly recognized. Bacon mentions the lucioli 
of Italy and hot countries, which, he says, may be the 
flying glow-worm. He thinks it probable that the lumi¬ 
nous insect of cold countries has not ripened far enough 
to be winged. He leans also to the doctrine of the gene¬ 
ration of this insect from putrefaction {Nat. Hist., 
century viii.). Muffett (p. 975) gives the names by which 
the glow-worm is known in a variety of languages. It is 
called in English— 
“ Glow-ivorm , shine-worm, glass-worm , i.e., a glistering or shining 
worm, for here as also in Gasconia, the male or flying glow-worm 
shines not, but the females which are meer worms. On the other side 
in Italy, and in the county of Heidelberg, the females shine not at all, 
and the males do. I leave the reason to be discussed by philosophers.” 
Lyly makes frequent and poetical use of this little 
insect: “ Dost thou not know that a perfect friend should 
