PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY. 347 



sequel to endless failures during the last six years in his attempts to 

 obtain a complete set of photographs from life which would show every 

 stage in the metamorphosis of the nymph of the dragon-fly. In his 

 endeavours to accomplish this he had taken over 1000 photographs 

 before he was successful, and he was glad to say that those which he 

 was going to show were all taken from the same individual, and recorded 

 every stage of the process which only occupied a period of six hours. 

 He thought this was worth mentioning, as it was a very different matter 

 from making up a set from photographs taken at various times of different 

 specimens. The early stages of the life of the dragon-fly were passed 

 in the water, and it was only when it was about to change for the last 

 time and become the perfect insect, that it left the water. It was neces- 

 sary therefore to provide some kind of stem which stood well up out of 

 the water up which the creature could crawl when the change was about 

 to take place. In making his observations he provided himself with a 

 number of the nymphs, and kept them in a bell-glass in which he fixed 

 a stick perfectly upright, and focussed his camera upon the centre line 

 of the stick. Considerable patience was required and constant watching, 

 because, after the first sign of change was noticed, the dragon-fly might 

 emerge at any time during the next three days ; but when once the 

 process of emergence began it went on so rapidly that, if the attention 

 of the observer was called off even for a few minutes, it was more than 

 likely that one, and perhaps several, important movements would take 

 place meanwhile ; in fact, so quickly did these sometimes occur, that he 

 might say that three of the photographs forming this set were taken 

 within the space of six seconds. His advice to anyone who undertook 

 such observations was to make sure of no interference or disturbance 

 from any well-meaning adviser. After showing a photograph of one of 

 the woodcuts which did duty in many works on natural history as an 

 illustration of the ruetamophosis of the dragon-fly, and pointing out 

 wherein it differed from what was actually seen in nature, Mr. Enock 

 gave some useful hints on collecting aquatic larvae, and showed two 

 views of the pond at Gelding's Hill which he had found to be an excellent 

 place for this purpose. Photographs of a nymph in the water were next 

 shown to illustrate the remarkable movements of the mask and the 

 manner in which these enabled prey to be seized. The position taken 

 up by the nymph on the portion of a stick above the water was then 

 sbown, and in a remarkable series of about thirty slides every stage of 

 the metamorphosis from this point to the fully developed insect with 

 expanded wings was completely demonstrated. 



The President having beeii obliged to leave the Meeting the chair 

 was subsequently occupied by Mr. E. M. Nelson, who said he had 

 listeued with very great pleasure to the most interesting demonstration 

 which Mr. Enock had given them, and he was sure that all present must 

 have been struck by the wonderful display of patience shown in pur- 

 suing a subject where the ordinary difficulties of photographing from life 

 were so very much enhanced by the circumstances under which they were 

 taken. He hoped that Mr. Enock would some day give them the other 

 demonstration to which he had referred, and he also hoped that some of 

 the Fellows present would be induced to turn their attention to similar 

 methods of observation. Everyone accustomed to lantern work knew 



