Page:The History of the Island of Dominica.djvu/77

 The fire fly is a wonderful inect, for it has a luminous quality in its head (above the eyes) under each wing, and in its tail; which, when the inect is flying, has the appearance of o many lights of candles moving in the air: or, the lights of a coach or pot-chaie in a dark night, travelling towards you at a brik rate.

Some of thee flies are as big as the top-joint of a man's thumb, others are much maller; 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 een flying in all directions, like o many thouand parkles of fire; forming one of the grandet pectacles of the kind that can be conceived, in Dominica's woods "that nightly hine with inect lamps."

The larger ort are often caught for the novelty of the light they give; if two or three of