The fire fly is a wonderful inſect, for it has a luminous quality in its head (above the eyes) under each wing, and in its tail; which, when the inſect is flying, has the appearance of ſo many lights of candles moving in the air: or, the lights of a coach or poſt-chaiſe in a dark night, travelling towards you at a briſk rate.
Some of theſe flies are as big as the top-joint of a man's thumb, others are much ſmaller; and the latter have that luminous quality only in their tails. They have a charming effect on the eye at night in the groves of the woods, where they are ſeen flying in all directions, like ſo many thouſand ſparkles of fire; forming one of the grandeſt ſpectacles of the kind that can be conceived, in Dominica's woods "that nightly ſhine with inſect lamps."
The larger ſort are often caught for the novelty of the light they give; if two or three
