DRAGON-PLY. 
243 
very long, slender, and siibcylindrical, is black, 
with rich variegations of bright blue, and deep 
grass-green: the wings are perfectly transparent, 
strengthened by ivery numerous black reticular 
fibres, and exhibit a strongly iridescent appear- 
ance, according to the various inflexions of light : 
each is marked near the tip by a small oblong- 
square black spot on the outer edge: the legs are 
black, and the tail is terminated by a pair of black 
forcipated processes, with an intermediate shorter 
one of similar colour. Sometimes this insect 
varies; the spots or marks on the abdomen and 
thorax being red or red-brown instead of green. 
In its motions it is extremely rapid, flying about 
in pursuit of its prey during the middle of the 
day, and is at this time taken with extreme dif- 
ficulty, darting off, on the slightest alarm from 
the spot on w^hich it had settled, and in the space 
of a second or two flying to a vast distance. Dur- 
ing the early morning hours, and those of evening, 
it is easily taken : at such times it is observed to 
sit with its wings expanded, but in a perfectly inert 
state, and will suffer itself to be readily seized by 
one of its wings, without attempting to stir from 
its place. 
The female Libellula deposits or drops her eggs 
into the water, which sinking to the bottom, are 
hatched, after acertain period, into hexapode flattish 
larvae or caterpillars, of a very singular and dis- 
agreeable aspect: they cast their skins several times 
before they arrive at their full size, and are of a 
dusky browm colour: the rudiments of the future 
