United States or Liechtenstein ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It was even as Nathan said. Almost while he was yet speaking, the light, which all now clearly beheld, at first a point as small and faint as the spark of a lampyris, and then a star scarce bigger or brighter than the torch of a jack-o'-lantern, suddenly grew in magnitude, projecting a long and lance-like, though broken, reflection over the wheeling current, and then as suddenly shot into a bright and ruddy blaze, illumining hill and river, and even the anxious countenances of the travellers.
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 paralysed 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.
The Hunting Wasps, by J. Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: passim. What does the Lampyris want with anæsthetical talent against a harmless and moreover eminently peaceful adversary, who would never begin the quarrel of his own accord? I think I see.
Under these conditions of equilibrium, the operator's short, clumsy legs are obviously not enough; a special accessory apparatus is needed to defy the danger of slipping and to seize the unseizable. And this apparatus the Lampyris possesses.
A corpse itself could not give fewer signs of life. Here is something even more conclusive: chance occasionally gives me Snails attacked by the Lampyris while they are creeping along, the foot slowly crawling, the tentacles swollen to their full extent.
Science employs the same term: it calls the lantern-bearer, Lampyris noctiluca, LIN. In this case, the common name is inferior to the scientific phrase, which, when translated, becomes both expressive and accurate. In fact, we might easily cavil at the word "worm." The Lampyris is not a worm at all, not even in general appearance.
Word Of The Day