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Finally, each segment is decked at the hinder edge with two spots of a fairly bright red. A costume like this was never worn by a worm. Let us leave this ill-chosen denomination and ask ourselves what the Lampyris feeds upon. That master of the art of gastronomy, Brillat-Savarin, said: "Show me what you eat and I will tell you what you are."
Fixed to the surface of the shell by an adhesive apparatus whereof the Lampyris will presently show us the equivalent, he remains on the look-out, waiting, if necessary, for whole days at a time. At last the need of air and food obliges the besieged non-combatant to show himself: at least, the door is set slightly ajar. That is enough. The Drilus is on the spot and strikes his blow.
As we see, sudden and profound anaesthesia is an excellent means of enabling the Lampyris to attain his object, which is to consume his prey in perfect quiet. What is his manner of consuming it? Does he really eat, that is to say, does he divide his food piecemeal, does he carve it into minute particles, which are afterwards ground by a chewing-apparatus? I think not.
Shall it find its old place on the shores of the Gulf of Salerno, or shall it mingle its rays with the northern aurora up among the fiords of Norway, or shall it be borne across the Atlantic and reach the banks of the Charles, where Agassiz and Wyman have taught, where Hagen still teaches, glowing like his own Lampyris splendidula, with enthusiasm, where the first of American botanists and the ablest of American surgeons are still counted in the roll of honor of our great University?
Here is the proof of the sudden efficacity of those twitches, so mild in appearance: I take the Snail from the Lampyris, who has operated on the edge of the mantle some four or five times. I prick him with a fine needle in the fore-part, which the animal, shrunk into its shell, still leaves exposed. There is no quiver of the wounded tissues, no reaction against the brutality of the needle.
In this resembling those tribes of insects, where the males at certain seasons acquire wings, but not the females, as ants, Cocchus, Lampyris, Phalæna, Brumata, Lichanella. These male flowers are in such numbers, though very minute, as frequently to cover the surface of the river to considerable extent. Clandestine marriage.
From these facts it would appear probable, that the animal has only the power of concealing or extinguishing the light for short intervals, and that at other times the display is involuntary. On the muddy and wet gravel-walks I found the larvae of this lampyris in great numbers: they resembled in general form the female of the English glowworm.
As we see, sudden and profound anæsthesia is an excellent means of enabling the Lampyris to attain his object, which is to consume his prey in perfect quiet. What is his manner of consuming it? Does he really eat, that is to say, does he divide his food piecemeal, does he carve it into minute particles, which are afterwards ground by a chewing-apparatus? I think not.
Human science did not in reality invent this art, which is one of the wonders of our latter-day surgery. Much earlier, far back in the centuries, the Lampyris and, apparently, others knew it as well. The animal's knowledge had a long start of ours; the method alone has changed.
It is in some such resting-place as this that I have often been privileged to light upon the Lampyris banqueting on the prey which he had just paralyzed on its shaky support by his surgical artifices. But he is familiar with other preserves. He frequents the edges of the irrigating-ditches, with their cool soil, their varied vegetation, a favourite haunt of the mollusc.
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