in this instance, I may again class with insects: if frightened they fall from their stations, fold up their legs, and remain motionless; and when in this situation, you might even pierce or tear them to pieces, without their exhibiting the slightest symptom of pain.

ANNA. They must be almost insensible to suffering then, I should think.

PAPA.-I by no means suppose that insects feel pain as acutely as more organized animals do: I think indeed that we have sufficient proof that they do not: for an insect impaled upon a pin, will often devour its prey with as much avidity as when at liberty; or if deprived of parts of its limbs, it will still fly about with great agility and apparent unconcern.

HENRY.-You do not then agree with the well-known assertion of Shakspeare, that

"The poor beetle that we tread upon,

In corporeal sufferance finds a pang as great
As when a giant dies."

PAPA. I do not: and considering how much they must suffer, exposed as they are to attack and injury, were they possessed of the same acute sensations of pain with the higher orders of animals, I view their apathy as a merciful provision in their favour. I would by no means, however, encourage wanton experiments to prove it; for though they do not, perhaps, feel as we do, they feel enough to make such experiments acts of cruelty.

Among their cunning method of defence from danger I might also mention the disguises under which some conceal themselves. They not only put a cheat upon their enemies by pretending to be dead, but by pretend ́ing to be other things that they are not. Some, as the Reduvius personatus, that successful enemy of the bedbug, cover themselves over with a coating of dirt, under which their real colour and form are effectually concealed; others roll themselves up so as to look like little pebbles or beads, or fix themselves upon a plant in such

a posture as to appear like a twig of it: the caterpillars called geometers, which I have already introduced to your acquaintance, are famous for doing this.

ANNA. Well, I could not have supposed that my pretty favourites were such little cheats.

PAPA.-Many of them have other and more honourable means of defence. The wasps and bees, for example, are not deficient in the same contrivance which we ourselves should employ to ward off an enemy,—that of placing sentinels at the entrance of their habitations; and the bees often even barricade the mouth of their hive by a thick wall, made of wax and propalis, when they have any reason to fear the intrusion of their troublesome enemy, the death's-head hawk-moth.

MAMA. And perhaps the luminous property which some insects possess, serves them as a means of defence.

PAPA. I have no doubt that occasionally it answers that purpose; neither the nature nor the general use of this singular provision has however yet been satisfactorily ascertained. Probably in different insects it answers different ends in some it may tend to dazzle and alarm their enemies; while in others it may be of service to guide their own course, or to direct that of their associates to them. But whatever may be the use of this property, it is among the most singular and interesting with which any of the insect world are endowed.

ANNA. I have frequently seen glow-worms shining during the evening in the garden; and very beautiful they are.

PAPA. I believe, my dear, you are mistaken; for I have never observed any glow-worms in our neighbourhood. These "stars of the earth, and diamonds of the night," as they have been called, are found chiefly in the southern parts of our island. The insect you have seen is the electric centipede, which is common in gardens, and is very useful in destroying worms. If the sun has shone on it during the day, it reflects in the evening a very resplendent and beautiful light. The

glow-worm is quite a different insect; it is considerably larger and something like a caterpillar in shape, only that it is much flatter.

HENRY.-I suppose it is not a caterpillar.

PAPA.—No; it is a perfect insect, the female of a winged beetle of the Lampyris genus. Probably all the species of this genus, of which there are about sixty in different parts of the world, are more or less luminous; we are acquainted however with only this one in Great Britain.

MAMA.-Our luminous insects are far inferior in splendour to those of the more southern and tropical countries. Do you not remember, Anna, how beautifully Southey introduces them in his "Madoc," as affording the light by which Coatel rescued the British hero from the hands of the Mexican priests?

"She beckoned and descended; and drew out
From underneath her vest a cage, or net

It rather might be called, so fine the twigs
Which knit it; where, confined, two fire flies gave
Their lustre. By that light did Madoc first

Behold the features of his lovely guide."

PAPA. He probably referred to the Elater Noctucus, another species of beetle, which emits so strong a light, that the smallest print may be read by moving one of them along the lines. It is said, that in the West Indies, particularly in St. Domingo, where they are very common, the natives were formerly accustomed to employ these living lamps, which they called cucuij, in the evening, instead of candles, in performing their household occupations; and that in travelling, they used to tie one to each great toe.

HENRY.-There is something very poetic in the idea of being so illuminated, however.

PAPA.--I believe it is a fact that these insects were so employed; at the present day they are used, we are told, in the Spanish colonies for 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 the 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." But 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 our poet, who has related its first effect upon the British visitors of the New world.

"Sorrowing we beheld

The night come on; but soon did night display
More wonders than it veiled; innumerous tribes
From the wood cover swarmed, and darkness made
Their beauties visible: one while they streamed
A bright blue radiance upon flowers that closed
Their gorgeous colours from the eye of day;
Now, motionless and dark, eluded search,
Self-shrouded; and anon, starring the sky,
Rose like a shower of fire."

HENRY.-If their light is so vivid, the story, which Mouffet tells, is not incredible, who informs us that when Sir Thomas Cavendish and Sir Robert Dudley first landed in the West Indies, and saw in the evening an infinite number of moving lights in the woods, which were merely fire flies, supposing it to be the Spaniards advancing upon them, they immediately retreated to their ships.

room.

MAMA. Did you ever read the story of Madame Merian's lantern-flies? The Indians had brought her several, which she, not then aware of their luminous properties, enclosed in a box and placed in her lodging In the middle of the night, the confined insects made such a noise as to awaken her, and she opened the box, the inside of which, to her great astonishment, appeared all in a blaze; letting it fall in her fright, she was not less surprised to see each of the insects apparently on fire. She soon, however, guessed the cause of the phænomenon, and reinclosed her brilliant guests in their place of confinement.

PAPA. I believe the lantern-flies are even brighter than the fire-flies.

HENRY. Are they also a species of beetle?

PAPA. No: they are a genus called fulgora, belonging to the order Hemiptera.

ANNA.-Ah, the order to which our little noisy musicians the cicada belong!

PAPA. And some of them are very noisy too, I assure you. There are several species, but the fulgora lanternaria of South America, and the fulgora candelaria of China are the most conspicuous. Both, as indeed is the case with the whole genus, have the material which produces the light inclosed in a transparent projection of the head; and we may readily imagine, as travellers assure us, that a tree, studded with myriads of these living lamps, some at rest and others in motion, must have an appearance transcendently grand.

ANNA. I suppose we have no luminous insects here but the glow-worm, and the centipede which I mistook for one.

PAPA.-I do not suppose that we are confined to them alone: it is probable that many other insects are luminous which have never been suspected to be so: The mole cricket, for instance, has been seen to shine so brightly as to be mistaken for an ignis fatuus, or Jack o' lantern, as it is vulgarly called. Indeed it was an opinion maintained both by Ray and Willughby, and that I think on very reasonable grounds, that the majority of these supposed meteors are no other than luminous insects: most of which have the power of concealing or exposing their light at pleasure.

Z. Z.