Interesting anecdotes about fireflies (Qingluo small fan blows at the flowing fireflies)

The story of "Nangying Night Reading" has been included in textbooks and can be said to be very popular. It is said that 1700 years ago, there was a poor boy named Che Yin who studied very hard and refused to let go of the night time. But he could not buy oil for lighting, so he caught some fireflies and pretended to be In a light-transmissive gauze bag, it is used for lighting and reading. One day, it was windy and rainy, and there was no way to catch fireflies. Che Yin sighed at home: "God won't let me achieve my goal of completing my studies!" After a while, an extra-large firefly flew over and stopped on the window, illuminating it. He read, and when he finished reading, it flew away. Later, Che Yin became a famous scholar. This can be regarded as a practical value of fireflies.

There is such a record in the ancient Chinese book "Secret Garden of Ancient and Modern Times": "Take the bladder of a sheep, blow it up and dry it in the sun, add more than a hundred fireflies, and tie them to the bottom of the foot net. The fish in the group, regardless of size, will go after their own light and gather together without moving. If you catch more, you will catch more."

Legend has it that when Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty visited the mountains, he used dendrobium (an ancient tool for measuring grain) to collect fireflies. At night, when the wine is sweet and strong, fireflies are released, illuminating the valley for a moment, like thousands of lights, which never go out for a long time, for fun.

The use of fireflies by humans has also been recorded abroad. There are fireflies in Africa. They are large and emit bright light. The locals catch them and put them in small cages, and then fix the cages on their feet to provide lighting when walking at night. There were many pirates in the Gulf of Mexico in ancient times, and sailors did not dare to light lamps, so they used fireflies instead. The British put many fireflies in glass bottles and sank them into the sea to attract fish, and they could catch a lot of fish. Spanish women wrap fireflies in tulle and wear them on their heads, making them sparkle.

In the tropical areas of South America, there is a giant firefly, which is 50 mm long. The light it emits shines like a big diamond. The Spanish army in the 17th century used this giant firefly to disguise its night fighting troops to deceive the enemy; when the enemy landed in the West Indies for a sneak attack, they discovered countless "flames" emitted by the giant fireflies in the forest. Thinking it was a match rope attached to the Spanish army's cannon, he hurriedly escaped by boat.

Coincidentally, there are many types of cocoon fireflies in Taiwan, my country, and they are also large. Some species emit light at night like neon lights. At the beginning of this century, Japan invaded and occupied Taiwan. One night, the Japanese invaders saw many "lights" in the distance and thought that the local residents were revolting, so they quickly opened fire for a long time without any response. Later they found out that the "lights" were actually fireflies. This incident was passed down as a joke.

Fireflies are familiar and beloved insects, and literati will never forget to praise them. "The autumn light of silver candles paints the screen coldly, and the light fan blows at the fireflies" (Du Mu's "Autumn Evening"). This is a wonderful line in Tang poetry and has long been popular. Firefly larvae often look for small insects in piles of rotten grass, so there is a misconception that "rotten grass is firefly". In Li Shangyin's "Sui Gong", there is also a sentence: "Today there is no fluorescent light in the rotting grass, but in ancient times there will be dusk crows in the weeping poplar trees." Fireflies have the habit of staying up and coming out at night, so there is a poem like "The fireflies fly in the evening palace and think quietly, and the solitary lamp is exhausted before they fall asleep" (Bai Juyi's "Song of Everlasting Sorrow"), which describes the scene of Emperor Ming of the Tang Dynasty staying awake at night and missing Yang Yuhuan.

animal tags： Fireflies Coleoptera Lucidae