Fireflies

6th Century BCE - present

“What was once a series of tales from old-timers about the decline of fireflies from the days of their youth is coalescing into a disturbing scientific truth . . . Nearly 1 in 3 firefly species in the United States and Canada may be threatened with extinction, firefly experts estimate in a recent comprehensive assessment.”

Loss of wetland habitat is the leading cause of extinction threat, followed by light pollution, pesticides, and increased soil dessication from climate change.

“Fireflies are bio-indicators of the health of the environment and are declining across the world as a result of degradation and loss of suitable habitat, pollution of river and water systems, increased use of pesticides . . . non-regulated commercial harvesting and increased ecological light pollution in areas of human habitation. The decline of fireflies is a cause for concern and reflects the global trend of increasing biodiversity loss . . .”

“Fireflies mean something special to a lot of people who grew up in the rural areas of the Tennessee Valley . . . the winking of the fireflies in the silence of a soft summer evening symbolizes a way of life that has been left behind. They have traded fireflies for flashing neon signs and silence for the roar of traffic and the blare of automobile horns . . ."

“There are many places in Japan which are famous for fireflies . . . Anciently the most celebrated of all such places was a little valley near Ishiyama, by the lake Omi . . . the Valley of Fireflies . . . the swarming of the fireflies in this valley, during the sultry season, was accounted one of the natural marvels of the country . . . that wonderful swarming of them, which old writers described, is no longer to be seen there.”

“As far as the eye could reach into the waterlogged forests, and up in the air among the invisible branches of invisible trees, flickered in inextricable bewilderment hosts of fireflies. The air was thick with them - a spoon would have stood up in it . . . perpetually striking matches . . . in countless millions . . . as they flew and peopled the inflammable air with phosphorescent points of flame; a battery of din perpetually grinding out showers of sparks.”

“It is said in Tuscany that the firefly gives light to the wheat when the corn begins to grow in the ear; when it has grown, the firefly disappears . . . In Sicily, the firefly is called the little candle of the shepherd . . . and is sought for and carried to secure good luck.”

“These fireflies

To the moonlight in each field

Shall I compare”

“During the circumnavigation of the earth . . . Drake wrote ‘Amongst these Trees, night by night, through the whole Land, did shew themselves an infinite swarm of fierie Wormes flying in the Ayre, whose bodies being no bigger than our common English Flyes, make such a shew and light, as if every Twigge or Tree had beene a burning Candle.’”

“Little Firefly

Little flitting white-fire spirit

Come and dance me

Come and teach me

Lead me to the happy dreams . . .”

“At that early day the trees could talk, but the people could not burn them, as they were without fire . . . [the fireflies] gathered wood for a great campfire, which they ignited by their own glow... Fox ran away with tail blazing, followed by the fireflies . . . and fire was widely spread over the earth . . ."