Lampyridæ.—Glow-worms.
Antonius Thylesius Bonsentinus, following his elegant description of the Glow-worm, gives a pretty fable of its origin. As translated in Moufet’s Theater of Insects, his words are these:
This little fly shines in the air alone,
Like sparks of fire, which when it was unknown
To me a boy, I stood then in great fear,
Durst not attempt to touch it, or come near.
May be this worm from shining in the night,
Borrow’d its name, shining like candle bright.
The cause is one, but divers are the names,
It shines or not, according as she frames
Herself to fly or stand; when she doth fly,
You would believe ’twere sparkles in the skie,
At a great distance you shall ever finde
Prepar’d with light and lanthorn all this kinde.
Darkness cannot conceal her, round about
Her candle shines, no winds can blow it out.
Sometimes she flies as though she did desire
Those that pass by to observe her fire;
Which being nearer, seem to be as great,
As sparks that fly when smiths hot iron beat.
When Pluto ravish’d Proserpine, that rape,
For she was waiting on her, chang’d her shape,
And since that time, she flyeth in the night
Seeking her out with torch and candle light.[172]
The following anecdote is related by Sir J. E. Smith, of the effect of the first sight of the Italian Glow-worms upon some Moorish ladies ignorant of such appearances. These females had been taken prisoners at sea, and, until they could be ransomed, lived in a house in the outskirts of Genoa, where they were frequently visited by the respectable inhabitants of the city; a party of whom, on going one evening, were surprised to find the house closely shut up, and their Moorish friends in the greatest consternation. On inquiring into the cause, they found that some Glow-worms—Pygolampis Italica—had found their way into the building, and that the ladies within had taken it into their heads that these brilliant guests were no other than the troubled spirits of their relations; of which curious idea it was some time before they could be divested.—The common people of Italy have a superstition respecting these insects somewhat similar, believing that they are of a spiritual nature, and proceed out of the graves, and hence carefully avoid them.[173]
Cardan, Albertus, Gaudentinus, Mizalduo, and many others have asserted that perpetual lights can be produced from the Glow-worm; and that waters distilled from this insect afford a lustre in the night. It is needless to say these assertions are without foundation.[174]
In India, the ladies have recourse to Fire-flies for ornaments for their hair, when they take their evening walks. They inclose them in nets of gauze.[175] And the beaux of Italy, Sir J. E. Smith tells us, are accustomed in the summer evenings to adorn the heads of the ladies with Glow-worms, by sticking them also in their hair.[176]
Never kill a Glow-worm, if you do, the country people say, you will put “the light out of your house,”—i.e. happiness, prosperity, or whatever blessing you may be enjoying.
A Glow-worm, in your path, denotes brilliant success in all your undertakings. If one enters a house, one of the heads of the family will shortly die. These superstitions obtain in Maryland.
Of the Glow-worm—Noctiluca terrestris, Col. Ecphr., i. 38—Dr. James says: “The whole insect is used in medicine, and recommended by some against the Stone. Cardan ascribes an anodyne virtue to it.”[177]
Mr. Ray, in his travels through the State of Venice, says: “A discovery made by a certain gentleman, and communicated to me by Francis Jessop, Esq., is, that those reputed meteors, called in Latin Ignis fatui, and known in England by the conceited names of Jack with a Lanthorn, and Will with a Wisp, are nothing else but swarms of these flying Glow-worms. Which, if true, we may give an easy account of those phenomena of these supposed fires, viz., their sudden motion from place to place, and leading travelers that follow them into bogs and precipices.”[178] It has been suggested[179] also that the mole-cricket, Gryllotalpa vulgaris,[180] which in its nocturnal peregrinations was supposed to be luminous, is this notorious “Will-o’-the-wisp.”
Pliny says: “When Glow-worms appear, it is a common
sign of the ripenesse of barley, and of sowing millet and pannick.… And Mantuan sang to the same tune:
Then is the time your barley for to mow,
When Glow-worms with bright wings themselves do show.”[181]