text:  In the July and August evenings fire-flies scintillate on a thousand points around you and swarm along the hedges lighting each other to bed till about midnight which is their curfew; for you seldom meet one of these lantern-bearers later though you may still in returning from a late party be stopped with momentary admiration at beholding a magnificent glow-worm burning her tail away at a great rate and lighting up some dark recess unvisited by star or moon herself a star and giving sufficient light to enable you to read the small print of a newspaper a foot off! But who shall attempt to describe his first acquaintance with the fire-fly! We have seen birthday illuminations in London and in Paris; we have seen the cupola of St Peter's start into pale yellow light as the deepening shadows of night shrouded all things around; we have seen the Corso on _Moccoletti_ night a long fluctuating line of ever renewed light from the street to the fourth story--an illumination _sui generis_ and "beautiful exceedingly;" but noise and confusion are around all these as you approach them