instead of two—just like three candles or dim lamps in the distance. This effect of distance must surely have been an illusion; really I think they could not have been many inches away; but the bubble was now undefined in form, and proportionately fainter than when it escaped from the earth. I suspect that there must have been something in the condition of these gas-bubbles—perhaps their electrical state—that kept them self-contained, and prevented their mingling with the air. I went on, still accompanied by my familiars, till I came to a gate, but not the one I was seeking. I paused—so did they. I went through—they went before instead of keeping at my side. Soon I found myself on slippery clay, with a suspicious gleam of water ahead, the three lights still moving forward. I turned my back on them, returned to the road, and went on, when I found them at my side as before; but thereafter I paid little attention to them. Coming to the end of the fence, I knew I must have passed the house. I decided to wait, and did wait, for dawn—for a long hour. When I stopped I looked for my attendants, and they were not to be seen. They must have been visible quite a quarter of an hour, and have accompanied me nearly a mile. Their behaviour was exactly such as is described by poets and storytellers in literature familiar to us all. What was new to me, and unlike anything I have read or heard of, was the newborn will-of-the-wisp emerging from the ground. I should add that this did not occur in swamp- or bog-land, but on the margin of an ordinary grass paddock, on a plain consisting of shingle covered with no great depth of earth, and that the moisture of the soil was exceptional, owing to recent heavy rains. Kirby and Spence's theory of luminous insects would not apply here. What I saw were luminous gas-bubbles, presumably from decaying organic matter; the light, I infer, resulted from slow combustion, necessarily at a low temperature, as the gas, which would not have filled a thimble, burned steadily for at least a quarter of an hour. According to Chambers, the impure hydrogen gas of marshes is not known to ignite spontaneously, and all attempts to imitate the phenomenon of the ignis fatuus have been unsuccessful. This seems to me to suggest some peculiar electrical condition of the gas as being the cause of the appearance. The most puzzling feature of the will-of-the-wisp, so general as to have become typical, and which I had full opportunity of verifying, is its habit of closely accompanying or preceding a traveller while maintaining the illusion of being at a considerable distance. On this occasion, though the air was not calm, there was very little wind. I confess that I cannot account for the apparent attraction that caused these uncanny meteors to accompany me a mile in the darkness,