2(5 THE LIFE-STORY OF INSECTS [CH. 



The adult dragon-fly (fig. 8 d) is specialised in such 

 a way that it captures its prey flies and other small 

 insects on the wing, swooping through the air like a 

 hawk and feeding voraciously. The head is remark- 

 able for its large globular compound eyes, its short 

 bristle-like feelers, and its very strong mandibles 

 which bite up the bodies of the victims. The thorax 

 bears the two pairs of ample wings, firm and almost 

 glassy in texture, and its segments are projected 

 forward ventrally, so that all six legs, which are 

 armed with rows of sharp, slender spines, can be held 

 in front of the mouth, where they form an effective 

 fly-trap. The abdomen is very long and usually 

 narrow. 



A female dragon-fly after a remarkable mode of 

 pairing, the details of which are beside our present 

 subject, drops her eggs in the water, or lays them on 

 water-weeds, perhaps cutting an incision where they 

 can be the more safely lodged, or even goes down 

 below the surface and deposits them in the mud at 

 the bottom of a pond. From the eggs are hatched 

 the aquatic larvae which differ in many respects from 

 the imago. The dragon-fly larva has the same pre- 

 daceous mode of life as its parent, but it is sluggish 

 in habit, lurking for its prey at the bottom of the 

 pond, among the mud or vegetation, which it re- 

 sembles in colour. The thoracic segments have not 

 the specialisation that they show in the imago ; the 



