CHAPTER IX 



DRAGON-FLIES (ODONATA) 



SOME Insects have at length impressed the popular 

 imagination with great distinctness, and among these 

 is the Dragon-fly. It is a little remarkable that 

 until modern times no Insect, except such as are 

 either useful to Man, or noxious in a striking degree, 

 should have commanded serious attention. During 

 the last hundred and fifty, or, at most, two hundred 

 years, mankind in Western Europe has begun for the 

 first time to take an interest in the natural history of 

 Insects without reference to their profitableness or to 

 the annoyance which they cause. The ancients cared 

 little for any Insect except the Bee, and no other 

 Insect plays a considerable part in classical literature, 

 though the Wasp, the Gnat, and the Gad-fly figure 

 occasionally in poetry or fable. It is a curious proof 

 of the general indifference to Insects that, until com- 

 paratively modern times, no literary use was made of 

 the extraordinary and easily observed transformations 

 of Butterflies. Indeed, there is, I believe, no familiar 

 Greek word of the classical period for a Butterfly. A 

 real popular interest in Natural History founded upon 

 observation is one of the latest fruits of the Revival 



