A Ceylon night after a heavy shower of rain is a brilliant sight,
when the whole atmosphere is teeming with moving lights bright as
the stars themselves, waving around the tree-tops in fiery
circles, now threading like distant lamps through the intricate
branches and lighting up the dark recesses of the foliage, then
rushing like a shower of sparks around the glittering boughs.
Myriads of bright fire-flies in these wild dances meet their
destiny, being entangled in opposing spiders' webs, where they
hang like fairy lamps, their own light directing the path of the
destroyer and assisting in their destruction.
There are many varieties of luminous insects in Ceylon. That
which affords the greatest volume of light is a large white grub
about two inches in length, This is a fat, sluggish animal, whose
light is far more brilliant than could be supposed to emanate
from such a form.
The light of a common fire-fly will enable a person to
distinguish the hour on a dial in a dark night, but the glow from
the grub described will render the smallest print so legible that
a page may be read with case. I once tried the experiment of
killing the grub, but the light was not extinguished with life,
and by opening the tail, I squeezed out a quantity of glutinous
fluid, which was so highly phosphorescent that it brilliantly
illumined the page of a book which I had been reading by its
light for a trial.
Pages:
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233