518 Habits and Transformations 



and cruel habits," he remarks, "justly entitle them to rank 

 " as emperors of the insect world." Interesting as they may 

 be on these accounts, they are likewise so on account of the 

 structure of their jaws when in the larva state, and from the 

 obvious example they supply of the interesting process of 

 transformation. 



Fig, 98. represents this process ; and, although the same 

 may be duly familiar to experienced entomologists, the cut, 



it is presumed, will be welcome to junior students in ento- 

 mology. Many who are familiar with dragon flies, as seen 

 in the end of summer ( « ), when vigorous in wing and 

 arrow-like in speed of flight (hence called, not ineptly, 

 " hobby-horses," by children in the fens of Cambridgeshire), 

 will, perhaps, scarcely credit the fact that these emperors of 

 the insect world emanate from a repulsive-looking voracious 

 grub ( h ), that, until it changes to the winged state, lives 

 wholly in the water, and subsists there on insects and 

 other small animals. This is, nevertheless, the fact; and on 

 the surface of still and slowly flowing waters, the empty pupa 

 cases ( c ) may be found floating in July and August : in 

 the ditches and drains of the fens of Cambridgeshire they are 

 at this time frequently visible. The first live larva of the 

 dragon fly I ever witnessed was while bathing, some years ago, 

 in the river Lark, near Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk. I then 

 knew not what it was ; but disliked its appearance, from the 

 strong similarity it bore to the land insect Goerius olens, 

 whose torturing and predaceous habits I knew. The simi- 

 larity in form, and greater size, instantly suggested the idea 

 that it was probably not less predaceous : subsequent research 

 and experience have proved this opinion accurate. The stu- 

 dent, by turning to Kirby and Spence's Introduction^ vol. i. 

 p. 272., and vol. iii. p. 126., will find superlative voracity 



