Color & Light

Latest news of houseflies and fireflies:

P: The eve of the annual spring appearance of the common housefly seemed the right time for Professor Stanley Barron Freeborn of the University of California to report the color preferences of that ubiquitous pest. It appeared that fly paper should be bright orange, a shade all flies like best; that tablecloths should be pale green, the least liked color. Dr. Freeborn, specialist in sheep & poultry parasites, conducted his housefly balloting by exposing a big rectangular board divided into squares of different colors, counting the number of insects which alighted on each (without taking repeaters into account). The vote: orange, 10,572; primrose yellow,. 6,541; dark blue, 4,750; canary yellow, 4,489; carmine, 4,415; jade green, 3,819; light grey, 3,790; light blue, 3,480; aluminum, 3,426; light coral red, 3,361; white, 2,360; ivory yellow, 2,238; light green, 2,067.

P:On calm, dark evenings of high humidity, observers may occasionally see hundreds of fireflies scattered over a considerable area, all flashing in unison. The phenomenon has aroused such interest that since 1916 no less than 19 accounts of it have been printed in Science. Fortnight ago a 20th communication was published by John Bonner Buck of Johns Hopkins' Zoological Laboratory. Mr. Buck said he had induced synchronized flashing in fireflies with an electric torch, was thus able to shed new light on the reason for its natural occurrence.

The flash of a firefly is a mating call. The unfertilized female waits in the grass, flashes in answer. In one common species, investigators have found that the male flashes regularly once every 5.7 sec. and" Mr. Buck discovered that the female replies 2.1 sec. later. Exchange of signals continues until they meet & mate. But other males may join the quest for the same female, and in answering her they get their flashes into phase with the first suitor on the scene. By selecting a cruising male and responding to its signal with a flash from an electric torch 2.1 sec. later, Mr. Buck was able to attract groups of 15 or 20 insects all lighting up simultaneously.

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