I got a Japanese friend to draw for me the two pictures of Heiké-gani herewith reproduced; and I can vouch for their accuracy. But I told him that I could not see anything resembling a helmet, either in his drawing of the Tatsugashira, nor in the original figure upon the back of the crab.
"Can you see it?" I asked. "Why, yes,—somewhat like this," he answered, making the following sketch:—
"Well, I can make out part of the head-gear," I said;—"but that outline of yours is not according to facts,—and that face is vapid as the face of the Moon. Look at the nightmare on the back of the real crab!..."
[Fireflies]
I
I want to talk about Japanese fireflies, but not entomologically. If you are interested, as you ought to be, in the scientific side of the subject, you should seek enlightenment from a Japanese professor of biology, now lecturing at the Imperial University of Tōkyō. He signs himself "Mr. S. Watasé" (the "S" standing for the personal name Shozaburo); and he has been a teacher as well as a student of science in America, where a number of his lectures have been published,[1]—lectures upon animal phosphorescence, animal electricity, the light-producing organs of insects and fishes, and other wonderful topics of biology. He can tell you all that is known concerning the morphology of fireflies, the physiology of fireflies, the photometry of fireflies, the chemistry of their luminous substance, the spectroscopic analysis of their light, and the significance of that light in terms of ether-vibration. By experiment he can show you that, under normal conditions of temperature and environment, the number of light-pulsations produced by one species of Japanese firefly averages twenty-six per minute; and that the rate suddenly rises to sixty-three per minute, if the insect be frightened by seizure. Also he can prove to you that another and smaller kind of firefly, when taken in the hand, will increase the number of its light-pulsings to upward of two hundred per minute. He suggests that the light may be of some protective value to the insect,—like the "warning colours" of sundry nauseous caterpillars and butterflies,—because the firefly has a very bitter taste, and birds appear to find it unpalatable. (Frogs, he has observed, do not mind the bad taste: they fill their cold bellies with fireflies till the light shines through them, much as the light of a candle-flame will glow through a porcelain jar.) But whether of protective value or not, the tiny dynamo would seem to be used in a variety of ways,—as a phototelegraph, for example. As other insects converse by sound or by touch, the firefly utters its emotion in luminous pulsings: its speech is a language of light.... I am only giving you some hints about the character of the professor's lectures, which are never merely technical. And for the best part of this non-scientific essay of mine,—especially that concerning the capture and the sale of fireflies in Japan,—I am indebted to some delightful lectures which he delivered last year to Japanese audiences in Tōkyō.