The University of Washington's arboretum is a lush, tree-planted, 260-acre park built by WPA, west of Seattle's exclusive Broadmoor district. It was the scene last week of a really glittering occasion. After speeches, orchestra music, ceremonies broadcast by radio, plump, close-coupled Collector of Customs Saul Haas, Seattle's Democratic patronage dispenser, lifted a pair of scissors, slashed the gauze covering of an ordinary-looking box. Out twinkled 200 fireflies.
Grownups and children alike watched raptly, for never before had fireflies been seen in Seattle. West of the Rockies is out-of-bounds for U. S. fireflies—either because...