Granddaddy Of The Flashlight

The people of Java use an ingenious contrivance that serves both as a flashlight and a place of confinement for fireflies. It is a shallow wooden dish on the bottom of which there is pitch. Fireflies are made captives by sticking them on this material. A lid that is pivoted on one end permits of ready opening and closing. An additional supply of "batteries" to be used in case of emergency is carried in a cane tube. The story runs that this unique contraption is a burglar's dark lantern, and has been so used. At any rate, it is easy to imagine that it is the great-great-granddaddy of the flashlight now so extensively used in the United States.

Years ago the Smithsonian Institution at Washington received from Chinameca, on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, a light-emitting beetle that was described by the donor as a bug with two round spots on its back that gave a sufficiently powerful light to enable a person to distinguish objects in a dark room and to read small print at a distance of six inches. This strange insect served not only as a sort of public utility, but it played an important role on festive occasions. The native women, when they engaged in the fandango, their national dance, which they had twice a week throughout the year, fastened the shining captives in their hair and headdress. Sometimes they made garlands of them. Dressed gayly and resplendent in their jewelry, which appeared to advantage in the beautiful bluish-white light emitted by the beetles, these women, so the historian says, could readily be mistaken for fairies.

Beetles were used by the Indians of Mexico. Just a few were ample to light a whole room. At night the insects played the part of "footlights," for it was the practice to wear one on each foot. This enabled the wearer to find his way in the darkness and also to avoid snakes. The Indians caught and sold the beetles for a few cents a dozen to Mexican ladies who, with pardonable vanity, put them into transparent bags and wore them in their hair and at their necks. It is said that in Japan social festivities are not complete unless fireflies are in evidence. Whether one attends a private garden party given by a nobleman or goes to an ordinary tea garden, he finds that fireflies are a part of the entertainment offered.

A skilled man can catch as many as three thousand in a single night. In these days of marvelous lighting facilities, even coal oil lamps seem antiquated to many of us, even though they are used in tens of thousands of homes in America at present. No wonder, then, that it is difficult for us to picture people using such crude devices as those mentioned, to offset the inconveniences, the disadvantages and the dangers that follow the sunset.