Page:The Zoologist, 1st series, vol 1 (1843).djvu/188

160 Note on an Electric Centipede. About eleven o'clock on the night of the 23rd instant, I observed on the pathway of my garden a little blue gleam, like that of the glow-worm. Taking it for granted to be that insect, though wondering to find it in such a situation, I approached it. On stooping down I saw that the light was motionless, of an oblong form, about as large as a small kidney -bean. I could feel no insect, but picked up the luminous substance with my fingers, and placed it in my hand, where it still shone, although less brilliantly. Some of the luminous matter remained on the earth, disturbed and somewhat scattered by my fingers; over this the light played fitfully for a few seconds, and then gradually went out. On bringing in my capture to the candle, I could at first discover nothing but a pinch of damp earth; but presently observed a very common-looking, slender, almost white, centipede, crawling on my fingers, on which I doubted not that I saw, for the first time in my life, the electric centipede (Scolopendra electrica). I placed the insect in a box, and carried it into a dark room, but there was now not the slightest radiance; this, however, I have observed in the splendid fireflies of America (Lampyris corusca, &c), whose light soon wanes, and is rarely renewed, in captivity. The next morning I put some damp sand in the bottom of a drinking-glass, on which I allowed my prisoner his parole, having first ascertained, however, that he could not crawl on perpendicular glass. I threw in a dead fly or two, on the juices of whose bodies I thought I once detected him in the act of feeding. Night came, but no luminosity; another, but all was dark; when I began to think I might have missed the true cause of the light after all, and that the presence of this centipede was merely accidental. He had been, however, slightly injured by the lid of the box at first. At last I thought that excitement might produce its light, and remembering the impatience and apparent distress that I have often seen manifested by inects when under the human breath, I breathed strongly on the centipede, and was pleased to see that it instantly became luminous through its whole length, writhing and throwing itself about in violent contortions, though at other times very inert. It quickly became dark again, and on repeating the experiment I found its influence became less and less, until it soon ceased to be affected at all by the breath: but after the lapse of another day and night, my breathing produced the same results as at first.— P.H. Gosse; Hackney, March, 1843.