164 



INSECT TRANSFORMATIONS. 



food that presented itself, and conveying it to your 

 mouth. Yet this procedure is that adopted by the 

 larvae of the dragon-fly provided with this strange 

 organ. While it is at rest, it applies close to and 

 covers the face. When the insects would make use 

 of it, they unfold it like an arm, catch the prey at 

 which they aim by means of the mandibuliform plates, 

 and then partly refold it so as to hold the prey to the 

 mouth in a convenient position for the operation of the 

 two pairs of jaws with which they are provided. Rtau- 

 mur once found one of them thus holding and de- 

 vouring a large tadpole; a sufficient proof that Swam- 

 merdam was greatly deceived in imagining earth to be 

 the food of animals so tremendously armed and fitted 

 for carnivorous purposes. In the larvae of Libellula, 

 Fabr., it is so exactly resembling a mask, that if en- 

 tomologists ever went to masquerades, they could not 

 more effectually relieve the insipidity of such amuse- 



The mask of the dragou-fly grub, in four different states of 

 opening and shutting. 



ments and attract the attention of the demoiselles than 

 by appearmg at the supper table with a mask of this 

 construction, and serving themselves by its assistance. 

 It would be ditficult, to be sure, by mechanism, to 



