Firebug

“ It’s the thing to expect. That firebug has burned school houses, a recreation center, the zoo. He seems to be bent on destroying everything that brings happiness to people. Why not this place next? And think what it would mean, Mazie! Think of ten thousand, maybe twenty or thirty thousand people, half of them children, gliding in boats through the City of Venice; children on the roller coaster and the chute the chutes; children a hundred feet in air on the Ferris wheel; board walks thronged with people ”

“ Poor Alden Payne! He was “boiling.” Nothing could have occurred to roil him more deeply. After completing two-thirds of the trip with the mail pouches and going through terrifying perils, his enemy, as he persisted in regarding him, had quietly stepped in and stolen the honor from him. Not only that, but he had left an insulting message, as if his act itself were not sufficient.
Our young friend could see no “ray of light.” Had he possessed his own pony he would have started in hot pursuit of Brandley, but Firebug was with the train and until he came up, no animal was at command. ”

“ Aside from the horror of being struck, was the dread that Jilk might be disabled. If that calamity should befall, Jethro would then skurry to some hiding place and make the best defense he could. So long as his pony was capable of running, he was not spared.
Firebug was naturally fleeter than Jilk, and having no burden to carry, easily held his place some yards in front. He was traveling with a speed which caused mane and tail to stream out, while the loose stirrups dangled and flew about against the ribs of the animal. ”

“ List all the possible suspects and search the neighborhood for desperate characters.”
“Such as gypsies?”
“No, not gypsies. They wouldn’t have any motive this time. But somebody must have a motive—unless it’s a crazy person who is responsible.”
Jane’s eyes opened wide.
“That’s an idea, Mary Lou! There are people like that—crazy along just one particular line. They feel they simply have to light fires. Firebugs, you know.”
“Incendiary is the correct term, I believe,” said Mary Louise. ”

“ Beautiful yellow canaries, brown warblers, parrots of gorgeous green, magnificent birds of paradise, tropical birds with plumage as varied as the hues of the rainbow—they one and all beat their wings against their cages and cried for freedom as they never had cried before in all their captive lives. ”

“ The sights that strike your eye are scarcely less impressive. Great streamers of confetti, red, white, blue, yellow and green tissue ribbons hanging from wires, from plaster-of-paris domes, from windows, from electric lights, from every spot where a sparrow might rest his wings; bushels of bits of paper flying through the air like a highly tinted snow storm; and the amusements—here a car rushing through space, there the whirling invitation of an airplane, and there again the slow and stately Ferris wheel. ”

“ The larvæ of the fireflies crawled slowly but happily over the fungus-covered mountainside, and great glow-worms clambered upon the shining tops of the toadstools and rested there, twin broad bands of bluish fire burning brightly within their translucent bodies.
They were the females of the firefly race, which never attain to legs and wings, but crawl always upon the earth, merely enlarged creatures in the forms of their own larvæ. Moths soared overhead with mighty, throbbing wing-beats, and all the world seemed a paradise through which no evil creatures roamed in search of prey. ”

“ The firefly, a soft-bodied, slow-flying insect, is easily caught and injured, but it is not fit for food, and, therefore, says the theory, lest it should be injured or killed by mistake, it has a fiery spark to warn enemies---birds, bats, and rapacious insects--that it is uneatable. ”

“ Immediately after sunset, the firefly-hunter goes forth, with a long bamboo pole upon his shoulder, and a long bag of brown mosquito-netting wound, like a girdle, about his waist. When he reaches a wooded place frequented by fireflies,—usually some spot where willows are planted, on the bank of a river or lake,—he halts and watches the trees. ”

“ The larval or grub stage is passed on the ground beneath grass, weeds and rubbish where they often prey upon other insects. In some cases the grubs may be able to produce light though as a rule the luminous grub-like creature or glow-worm is a wingless adult firefly. [76]
Observations and Studies
Firefly beetles on sour-dock leaf.
Lower surface of firefly beetle enlarged to show the light producing segments of the abdomen.
Watch for the first appearance of the fireflies in the evening and see where they come from. Do they all appear at once or only a few at first? Do they fly fast? ”

“ He suggests that the light may be of some protective value to the insect,—like the "warning colours" of sundry nauseous caterpillars and butterflies,—because the firefly has a very bitter taste, and birds appear to find it unpalatable. (Frogs, he has observed, do not mind the bad taste: they fill their cold bellies with fireflies till the light shines through them, much as the light of a candle-flame will glow through a porcelain jar.) But whether of protective value or not, the tiny dynamo would seem to be used in a variety of ways,—as a phototelegraph, for example. ”

“ A beautiful and far-famed insect—do not mistake, I mean neither the Emperor, nor the King of Sardinia, but a much finer specimen—the fire-fly. Their bright light is evanescent, and alternates with the darkness, as if the swift whirling of the earth struck fire out of the black atmosphere; as if the winds were being set upon that planetary grindstone, and gave out such momentary sparks from their edges. Their silence is more striking than their flashes, for sudden phenomena are almost invariably attended with some noise, but these little jewels dart along the dark as softly as butterflies. ”

“ Great indeed is the loss, for in this quest of fire many thousand insects, attracted by the fire-fly, are burned to death in the vain hope of winning the fire that shall gain the cruel but beautiful one that fascinates them. It is for this cause that each night insects hover around the lamp flame, and every morning a crowd of victims drowned in the oil, or scorched in the flame, must be cleaned from the lamp. ”

“ When well away from their sleeping relatives, they lifted their wing-covers, spread their wings, and flew to the farthest corner of the marsh. They were not afraid of being punished if caught, for they were orphans and had nobody to bring them up. They were afraid that if the other Fireflies awakened they would be called "silly" or "foolish young bugs." They thought that they were old enough to take care of themselves, and did not want advice. [Pg 151]
"Oh, wouldn't they make a fuss if they knew!" exclaimed the Larger Firefly. ”

“ The dull, black bug sees all these bright, agile insects; and, for the first time in his life, he feels discontented with his own low place in the mud. A longing creeps through him that is quite different from the customary longing for mosquitoes and flies. "I will creep up the stem of this rush," he thinks; "and perhaps, when I reach the surface of the water, I can dart like the little flat boatmen, or, better than all, shoot through the air like the blue-winged dragon-fly." ”

“ The lightning bugs or fireflies which are seen so often on summer evenings in the country and among the trees in the parks of the city, are similar to the species of beetle called the glowworm in Great Britain, although the glowworm there does not give as much light as the firefly in America.
In reality it is only the female which is the lightning bug, for the male is not equipped with any lighting power. ”

“ Darwin says: “In Jamaica, at some seasons of the year, the Fire-flies are seen in the evening in great abundance. When they settle on the ground, the bull-frog greedily devours them, which seems to have given origin to a curious, though very cruel, method of destroying these animals: if red-hot pieces of charcoal be thrown toward them in the dusk of the evening, they leap at them, and hastily swallow them, mistaking them for Fire-flies, and are burnt to death.” ”

“ The Genji-firefly shuns swamps, ditches, or foul canals; while the Heiké-firefly seems to be satisfied with any water. All fireflies seek by preference grassy banks shaded by trees; but they dislike certain trees and are attracted by others. They avoid pine trees, for instance; and they will not light upon rose-bushes. But upon willow trees—especially weeping willows—they gather in great swarms. Occasionally, on a summer night, you may see a drooping willow so covered and illuminated with fireflies that all its branches appear "to be budding fire." ”

“ Sometimes the burrow contains nothing but the well-sinker surprised at its work: sometimes—and not rarely—the hermit will be found embracing a small subterranean fungus, entire or partly consumed. It presses it convulsively to its bosom and will not be parted from it. This is the insect's booty: its worldly wealth. Scattered crumbs inform us that we have surprised the beetle at a feast. ”

“ And there's the fire-fly, which is a soft-bodied beetle.
"And there's the very useful little beetle we call the ladybug, which is not a bug, but a beetle. The ladybug is a great help to men who own fruit orchards in the West. All over the country are to be found little bugs called scale insects. These scales are very bad for trees, because with their long, slender beaks the scales pump out the sap. ”

“ Rose-bugs are also eaten greedily by domesticated fowls; and when they become exhausted and fall to the ground, or when they are about to lay their eggs, they are destroyed by moles, insects, and other animals, which lie in wait to seize them. Dr. Green informs us that a species of dragon-fly, or devil’s needle, devours them. He also says that an insect, which he calls the enemy of the cut-worm, probably the larva of a Carabus, or predaceous ground-beetle, preys on the grubs of the common dor-bug. ”

“ In a part of a forest was a troop of monkeys who found a firefly one winter evening when they were dreadfully depressed. On examining the insect, they believed it to be fire, so lifted it with care, covered it with dry grass and leaves, thrust forward their arms, sides, stomachs, and chests, scratched themselves, and enjoyed imagining that they were warm. One of the arboreal creatures in particular, being especially chilly, blew repeatedly and with concentrated attention on the firefly. ”

“ It is natural to suppose that an insect which throughout its whole life is in such intimate relationship with man should play an important rôle in the transmission of disease. Yet comparatively little is definitely known regarding the importance of the bed-bug in this respect. It has been shown that it is capable of transmitting the bubonic plague, and South American trypanosomiasis. Nuttall succeeded in transmitting European relapsing fever from mouse to mouse by its bite. ”

“ Over this conflagration I would silently smoke my pipe and husband my meagre allowance of rum and water, and this was frequently the most pleasant hour of the twenty-four, as, keeping well to windward, neither flames nor smoke incommoded me in the least.
Among the many insect pests, whose view of the beauties of the fire differed in all probability from my own, were those extremely disgusting creatures, yclept “Flying Bugs,” which are of a greenish colour, about the 104 size of a lady-bird; and which, on the slightest provocation, emit their horrible effluvia. ”

“ Fireflies, visible only as tiny sparks of light, flitted and glanced and whirled hither and thither against the black shadows of the foliage, whilst the black water, so highly phosphorescent that every tiniest ripple was edged with its own individual and separate line of silvery fire, glowed and darkened, sparkled and flashed, and at times seemed to fairly throb with liquid lightning as the countless living creatures within it stirred its sleeping depths. ”

“ Haze that hung always among the mushroom forests and above the fungus hills grew more tenuous, and the slow and misty rain that dripped the whole night long ceased reluctantly.
As far as the eye could see a mad world stretched out, a world of insensate cruelties and strange, fierce maternal solicitudes. The insects of the night—the great moths whose wings spread far and wide in the dimness, and the huge fireflies, four feet in length, whose beacons made the earth glow in their pale, weird light—the insects of the night had sought their hiding-places. ”

“ Before becoming the pretty red ladybird with black spots, this pretty insect, which, in spite of its innocent air, crunches the plant-lice, is a very ugly worm, a slate-colored larva, covered with little points, and itself very fond of plant-lice. The June bug, the silly June bug, which, if its leg is held by a thread, awkwardly puffs out its wings, makes all preparations, and starts out to the tune of ‘Fly, fly, fly!’ is at first a white worm, a plump larva, fat as bacon, which lives under-ground, attacks the roots of plants, and destroys our crops. ”

“ It flew off with a humming insect sound, and as it did so it showed the brilliant phosphorescent glow they had observed.
"That is a good-sized fire-fly," said Bearwarden. "Evidently the insects here are on the same scale as everything else. They are like the fire-flies in Cuba, which the Cubans are said to put into a glass box and get light enough from to read by. Here they would need only one, if it could be induced to give its light continuously." ”