FIREFLIES.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume VII, Issue 2143, 28 December 1920, Page 4

FIREFLIES.

In Japan there are established firms of firefly dealers, each employing 60 or 70 catchers, and exporting their catch chiefly to the large cities, where fire- ' flies are adjuncts to all grades of social festivity, from the 2>rivate garden parties of nobles to an evening at a cheap tea garden. Sometimes they are kept caged, sometimes released in swarms in the presence of the guests. The firefly hunter starts forth at sunset with a long bamboo pole and a bag of mosquito netting. On reaching a suitable growth of willows near water he makes ready his net and strikes with his pole the branches, twinkling with the inserts. This ja?s them to the ground, where they are easily gathered up. But it must be done very rapidly, before they recover themselves enough to fly. So the skilled catcher, sparing no time to put them at once into- the bag, uses both hands to pick them up, and tosses them lightly into his mouth! There he holds them unharmed until he can hold no more,, and only then transfers them to the bag. . He works thus until about 2 o'clock in the morning, when the insects leave the trees for the dewy soil. He then changes his methods. He brushes the surface of the ground with a light broom to startle the insects into light; then he gathers them as before. An expert has been known to gather 3000 in a night. Besides being a business, firefly catching is a sport. Little girls pursue it with their fans, boys with wands to which a wisp of yarn is fastened. Nor do the elders disdain to join the sport. They also organise festival parties to visit certain spots, long known and famous, to witness the beautiful

spectacle of the fireflies swarming. Special trains, carrying thousands of visitors, are run during the season to Uji, the most renowned, to behold the Hotara-Kassen, or firefly battle. Myriads of fireflies hovering over a gentle river so swarm and cling together that they appear at one time like a luminous cloud, again like a great ball of sparks. Cloud or ball, the wonder soon breaks, and thousands of the fallen insects drift with the stream, while new swarms form, reform and sparkle continuously above the water. So marvellous is the sight that a Japanese poet wrote:— "Do I see only fireflies drifting with the current, or is the night itself drifting, with all its swarming stars?"