Their lustre. By that light did Madoc first
Behold the features of his lovely guide.
Darwin says: “In Jamaica, at some seasons of the year, the Fire-flies are seen in the evening in great abundance. When they settle on the ground, the bull-frog greedily devours them, which seems to have given origin to a curious, though very cruel, method of destroying these animals: if red-hot pieces of charcoal be thrown toward them in the dusk of the evening, they leap at them, and hastily swallow them, mistaking them for Fire-flies, and are burnt to death.”(!)[171]
Beetles belonging to the family Elateridæ have been so called from a peculiar power they have of leaping up like a tumbler when placed on their backs, and for this reason they have received the English appellations of Spring-beetles and Skip-jacks, and from the noise which the operation makes when they leap, they are also called Snap, Watch, or Click-beetle, and likewise Blacksmiths.
If a Blacksmith beetle enters your house, a quarrel will ensue which may end in blows.
This superstition obtains in Maryland.
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