CONCORD, August 17, 1857.
MR. WATSON,--I am much indebted to you for your glowing communication
of July 20th. I had that very day left Concord for the wilds of Maine;
but when I returned, August 8th, two out of the six worms remained
nearly, if not quite, as bright as at first, I was assured. In their
best estate they had excited the admiration of many of the inhabitants
of Concord. It was a singular coincidence that I should find these
worms awaiting me, for my mind was full of a phosphorescence which I
had seen in the woods. I have waited to learn something more about
them before acknowledging the receipt of them. I have frequently met
with glow-worms in my night walks, but am not sure they were the same
kind with these. Dr. Harris once described to me a larger kind than I
had found, "nearly as big as your little finger;" but he does not name
them in his report.
The only authorities on Glow-worms which I chance to have (and I am
pretty well provided) are Kirby and Spence (the fullest), Knapp
("Journal of a Naturalist"), "The Library of Entertaining Knowledge"
(Rennie), a French work, etc., etc.; but there is no minute,
scientific description of any of these. This is apparently a female of
the genus _Lampyris_; but Kirby and Spence say that there are nearly
two hundred species of this genus alone. The one commonly referred to
by English writers is the _Lampyris noctiluca_; but judging from Kirby
and Spence's description, and from the description and plate in the
French work, this is not that one, for, besides other differences,
both say that the light proceeds from the abdomen. Perhaps the worms
exhibited by Durkee (whose statement to the Boston Society of Natural
History, second July meeting, in the _Traveller_ of August 12, 1857, I
send you) were the same with these. I do not see how they could be the
_L. noctiluca_, as he states.
I expect to go to Cambridge before long, and if I get any more light
on this subject I will inform you. The two worms are still alive.
I shall be glad to receive the drosera at any time, if you chance to
come across it. I am looking over Loudon's "Arboretum," which we have
added to our library, and it occurs to me that it was written
expressly for you, and that you cannot avoid placing it on your own
shelves.
I should have been glad to see the whale, and might perhaps have done
so, if I had not at that time been seeing "the elephant" (or moose) in
the Maine woods. I have been associating for about a month with one
Joseph Polis, the chief man of the Penobscot tribe of Indians, and
have learned a great deal from him, which I should like to tell you
some time.