. Cuvier's animal kingdom : arranged according to its organization. Animals. 512 INSECTA. to vary its action, which is especially the case when they are seized or held in the hand. They live for a very long time in a vacuum, or in différent gases, except nitric, muriatic, and sulphuric acid gas, in which they die in a few moments. Their immersion in hydrogen gas renders them, at least sometimes, detonating. When deprived by mutilation of this luminous part of the body they survive, and this detached part preserves for some time its luminous powers, either when submitted to the action of differ
. Cuvier's animal kingdom : arranged according to its organization. Animals. 512 INSECTA. to vary its action, which is especially the case when they are seized or held in the hand. They live for a very long time in a vacuum, or in différent gases, except nitric, muriatic, and sulphuric acid gas, in which they die in a few moments. Their immersion in hydrogen gas renders them, at least sometimes, detonating. When deprived by mutilation of this luminous part of the body they survive, and this detached part preserves for some time its luminous powers, either when submitted to the action of different gases, in vacuo, or in the open air, its phospho- rescence depending upon its moistness rather than on the life of the animal, as it is easily re-lighted on moistening the substance with water ; it appears much more bright also when immersed in warm water, which is the only fluid capable of dissolving it. These insects are nocturnal in their habits, the males being occasionally seen flying, like moths, round lights ; whence we conclude that the luminous property of the females has for its object the attraction of individuals of the other sex ; and if, as De Geer states, the larvae and pupae of the common Glow-woiin are luminous, it is only to be attributed to the developement of this phosphoric substance from the earliest age. The males themselves also possess this power, but in a very slight degree. Nearly all the species of hot climates have both sexes winged, and as they occur in great quantities, they exhibit a brilliant spectacle to the inhabitants. Amydetes, Hoflfm., comprises some Brazilian species, having the antennae composed of more than eleven joints, and strongly plumose. Phengodes, Hoftm., also consists of other South American species, with only eleven joints in the antennae, the third and following joints emitting two long ciliated and curled filaments. The remaining species compose the restricted genus Lampyris, divisible, from the form of the antennae, the
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