262 PAINTING OF DRAGON-FLIES ; 



highly distinguished or distinguishable little cousin, the scarlet 

 Satin Mite/ whose showy doublet loses nothing by contrast 

 with the ground he traverses. 



On the order Neuroptera, including dragon, scorpion, and 

 lacewing flies (that trio of the "Fair and Fierce '' already 

 noticed) the pencil of nature has laid some of her most bril- 

 liant colours, wanting only breadth to attract more general 

 attention. The linear trunks of dragon-flies are variegated 

 according to their species with yellow, blue, green, and red, 

 each accompanied more or less with black, and exhibit in the 

 peculiar clearness and sharpness of their mode of inlay the 

 appearance more of mosaic than of surface painting. \\ itli 

 these, to preserve for the cabinet the hues of life the collector 

 finds it recaiisite to stuff them, in other words, to remove the 

 contents of the body, supplying the vacuum with cotton 

 steeped in spirits. By a process something similar, even the 

 more fugacious colours of spiders may be in some degree 

 preserved. 



The colours of the Orthoptera, such as grasshoppers, lo- 

 custs, and crickets, are somewhat more enduring, as infused 

 into harder substances than those last mentioned, though even 

 these, in their greens especially, are considerably given to 

 change. Those accustomed only to the simple liveries of our 

 native Gryttida and Locustidce might little expect to behold in 

 foreigners of the same order specimens of splendid painting, 



* Trombidium holosericum. 



