Note 699 — LETTER XXV.

Ins. Sur. 49.—The above account of the luminous properties of Fulgora laternaria is given, because negative evidence ought not hastily to be allowed to set aside facts positively asserted by an author whose veracity is unimpeached; but it is necessary to state, that not only have several of the inhabitants of Cayenne, according to the French Dictionnaire d'Histoire Naturelle, denied that this insect shines, in which denial they are joined by M. Richard, who reared the species (Encyclopédie, art. Fulgora); but the learned and accurate Count Hoffmansegg informs us, that his insect collector Sieber, a practised entomologist of thirty years standing, and who, when in the Brazils for some years, took many specimens, affirms that he never saw a single one in the least luminous. Der Gesellschaft Naturf. Fr. zu Berlin Mag. i. 153.