s new material, but the fibre was generally considered as too
fragile.

A sample of such thread as is spun by the spider described could not
have failed to produce the desired result, as its strength is so great
that it can be wound upon a card without the slightest care required in
the operation. The texture is far more silky than the fibre commonly
produced by spiders, which has more generally the character of cotton
than of silk.

Should this ever be experimented on, a question might arise of much
interest to entomologists, whether a difference in the food of the
spider would affect the quality of the thread, as is well known to be
the case with the common silkworm.

A Ceylon night after a heavy shower of rain is a brilliant sight, when
the whole atmosphere is teeming with moving lights bright as the stars
themselves, waving around the tree-tops in fiery circles, now threading
like distant lamps through the intricate branches and lighting up the
dark recesses of the foliage, then rushing like a shower of sparks
around the glittering boughs. Myriads of bright fire-flies in these
wild dances meet their destiny, being entangled in opposing spiders'
webs, where they hang like fairy lamps, their own light directing the
path of the destroyer and assisting in their destruction.

There are many varieties of luminous insects in Ceylon. That which
affords the greatest volume of light is a large white grub about two
inches in length, This is a fat, sluggish animal, whose light is far
more brilliant than could be supposed to emanate from such a form.

The light of a common fire-fly will enable a person to distinguish the
hour on a dial in a dark night, but the glow from the grub described
will render the smallest print so legible that a page may be read with
case. I once tried the experiment of killing the grub, but the light
was not extinguished with life, and by opening the tail, I squeezed out
a quantity of glutinous fluid, which was so highly phosphorescent that
it brilliantly illumined the page of a book which I had been reading by
its light for a trial.

All phosphorescent substances require friction to produce their full
volume of light; this is exemplified at sea during a calm tropical
night, when the ocean sleeps in utter darkness and quietude and not a
ripple disturbs the broad surface of the water. Then the prow of the
advancing steamer cuts through the dreary waste of darkness and awakens
into fiery life t