ALONG THE RIVER 



A strange and luxuriant vegetation runs riot by the margin 

 of lowland rivers at midsummer, and fosters abundantly the 

 life of insect and bird. 



Most dragon-flies are graceful in form and colour as well 

 as fleet of wing, but the most exquisite species haunt the 

 watersides from early June. The larger species that rove 

 freely through gardens, lanes, and clearings in woodlands 

 in later summer are excelled by several smaller kinds that 

 haunt the watersides. Dragon-flies are badly off for English 

 names ; ' horse-stinger ' is crudely misleading, and ' demoi- 

 selle,' which is sometimes confined to the smaller species, is 

 not really English. There are scientific Latin names for use 

 at need, but they seem stiff and out of place while the living 

 insects float by the June waterside. But it is as well to 

 know that the two commonest varieties — one with wings 

 broadly splashed with metallic purple and the other with 

 rusty red — are the two sexes of one species, and that when 



