Banded Amaryllis. _Amaryllis vittata._
Dedicated to _St. Zephyrinus_.
~August 27.~
_St. Cæsarius_, Abp. of Arles, A. D. 542. _St. Pæmen_, or _Pastor_,
Abbot about A. D. 385. _St. Hugh_ of Lincoln, A. D. 1255. _St. Joseph
Calasanctius_, A. D. 1648. _St. Malrubius_, about A. D. 1040. _St.
Syagrius_, Bp. of Autun, A. D. 600.
_The Glowworm._
Dr. Forster in his “Perennial Calendar” quotes the mention of this and
other luminous insects from “a late entomological work,” in the
following passage:--“This little planet of the rural scene may be
observed in abundance in the month of August, when the earth is almost
as thickly spangled with them as the cope of heaven is with stars. It is
not only the glowworm that will not bear inspection when its lustre is
lost by the light of day; but all those luminous insects that bear the
same phosphoric fire about them, such as the lanthorn fly of the West
Indies and of China, of which there are several sorts; some of which
carry their light in a sort of snout, so that when they are seen in a
collection, they are remarkably ugly. There is also an insect of this
luminous sort common in Italy, called the lucciola. An intelligent
traveller relates, that some Moorish ladies having been made prisoners
by the Genoese, lived in a house near Genoa till they could be
exchanged, and, on seeing some of the lucciola, or flying glowworms,
darting about in the evening in the garden near them, they caused the
windows to be shut in a great alarm, from a strange idea which seized
them, that these shining flies were the souls of their deceased
relations.”
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