Women, who like to emphasise their own beauty, or the want of it, by placing themselves in juxtaposition with every lovely thing in nature, and care not if a thousand deaths go to help one smile or glance, have not forgotten the fire-flies. They put them in their hair, or wire them onto their dresses, threading them together, sometimes, in long bands, which they wind about their fair—or otherwise—persons; they do this, more especially, when going out to parties, fancy-dress balls, or other social entertainments. The advantages are obvious, for the homeliest features may be thus lighted up, and the dullest woman become brilliant. No wonder that in some South American cities—Vera Cruz for example—these fire-fly beetles form quite an important article of trade, all for toilette purposes.[151] The natives catch them by waving sticks with burning coals tied to their ends through the air, by the light of which they are attracted, and so come within reach of a long-handled butterfly net. When caught, they are put into a box covered with a little netting of wire, and there kept till wanted. They are fed upon sugar-cane, and twice a day must be bathed in tepid water.[151] What is done with the poor beetles after they have contributed to the night’s amusement we are never told—whether those that have been all wired together are unwired and let go, or pulled off in two or more pieces to save trouble, as seems more likely. It is likelier still perhaps, in the houses of the rich, that the whole thing is flung aside, and the poor living lamps left to struggle till they die—unprovided with sugar-cane. But such details are not thought worth mentioning. The charming effect is the one thing dwelt upon, and charming it may very well be, though to gain it through a mass of even insect discomfort is, to my mind, a contemptible thing. Fancy fifty or a hundred uncomfortable, writhing, struggling things on the dress that a lady is dancing in, every one of which, if let go, would make a wandering star in the air more really worth looking at than the whole ball-room together! By substituting flowers for women, however, effects far more beautiful are gained through less reprehensible means. The fire-beetles—why should they be called flies?—are in this case confined in small globes of delicate glass, set amidst clusters of flowers, or flowering shrubs, and thus they softly illuminate the garden. Give them some sugar-cane whilst the party is in progress, and let them go next morning, and they will have had very little to complain of—a strange experience for any lower creature that gets into the clutches of the highest one.