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The Fire-Fly (Night carrying a burning)

the night, carrying a burning fire-brande in his hande, and ascendeth the next hillock, that the cucuij may see it, and hee swingeth the fire-brande about, calling Cucuie aloud, and beating the ayre with often calling out, Cucuie, Cucuie." He goes on to observe, that the simple people believe the insect 's attracted by their invitatiors; but that, for his part, he is rather inclined to think that the fire is the magnet. Having obtained a sufficient number of cucuij, the beetle-hunter returns home, and lets them fly loose in the house, where they diligently seek the gnats about the beds and the faces of those asleep, and devour them. - Martire ubi sup". Colonies, i. 128. These insects are also applied to purposes of decoration. On certain festival-days, in the month of June, they are collected in great numbers, and tied all over the garments of young people, who gallop through the streets on horses similarly ornamented, producing on a dark evening the effect of a large moving body of light. On such occasions, the lover displays his gallantry by decking his mistress with these living gems.- Walton's Present State of the Spanish Colonies. And according to P. Martire, " many wanton wilde fellowes" rub their faces with "the flesh of a killed cucuij," as boys with us use phosphorus, " with purpose to meet their neighbours with a flaming countenance," and derive amusement from their fright. Besides Elater noctilucus, E. ignitus, and several others of the same genus, are luminous: not fewer than twelve species of this family are described by Illiger in the Berlin Naturalist Society's Magazine.

The brilliant nocturnal spectacle presented by these insects to the inhabitants of the countries where they abound, cannot be better described than in the language of the poet above referred to, who has thus related its first effect upon British visitors of the new world: " sorrowing we beheld The night come on: but soon did night display More wonders than it veil'd; innumerable tribes From the wood-cover swarm'd, and darkness made Their beauties visible; one while they stream'd A bright blue radiance upon flowers that clos'd Their gorgeous colours from the eye of day; Now motionless and dark, eluding search, Self-shrouded; and anon starring the sky, Rose like a shower of fire."

If we are to believe Mouffet, (and the story is not incredible,) the appearance of the tropical fire-flies on one occasion led to a more important result than might have been expected from such a cause. He tells us, that when Sir Thos. Cavendish and Sir John Dudley first landed in the West Indies, and saw in the evening an infinite number of moving lights in the woods, which were merely these insects, they supposed that 2S