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Ellen ran and brought a vial, into which we put a dozen, when it literally gave forth the light of a bright lamp, sufficient to write by. It is known in the country as the cocuja. It is the elater, or still more scientifically, the Pyrophorus noctilucus.

About the habits of Pyrophorus, the large tropical firefly which has the seat of its luminosity on the upper surface of the thorax, nothing definite appears to be known; but it has been said that this instinct is altogether nocturnal. The Pyrophorus is only found in the sub-tropical portion of the Argentine country, and I have never met with it.

This is the only method that I am aware of for procuring fire by friction in Burma, but on the hills and out of the way parts, that philosophical toy, the "pyrophorus," is still in use. This consists of a short joint of a thick woody bamboo, neatly cut, which forms a cylinder. At the bottom of this a bit of tinder is placed, and a tightly-fitting piston inserted composed of some hard wood.

Of those diamonds of the night, the fire-flies and fire-beetles, there are numerous species. One of the most abundant and of much larger dimensions than the rest of the elaters or beetles pyrophorus noctilucus, called by the natives cocuja, displays both red and green light.

Pyrophorus, when enclosed in a bottle or deprived of contact with the air, can not take fire by itself, but it burns as soon as exposed to the air. Flour and water cause fermentation as soon as they are mixed. Thus dead substances engender motion of themselves. Matter has then the power to move itself, and nature, in order to act, does not need a motor whose essence would hinder its activity.

And on the bromelias, grass plantains, orchids, cacti, and in short all the parasites which formed a little forest beneath the large one, many marvelous insects were they tempted to pluck as though they had been genuine blossoms nestors with blue wings like shimmering watered silk, leilu butterflies reflexed with gold and striped with fringes of green, agrippina moths, ten inches long, with leaves for wings, maribunda bees, like living emeralds set in sockets of gold, and legions of lampyrons or pyrophorus coleopters, valagumas with breastplates of bronze, and green elytrae, with yellow light pouring from their eyes, who, when the night comes, illuminate the forest with their many-colored scintillations.