188 SUMMER 



they sail together in courtship nature is not planning some 

 singular hybridisation, as the unlikeness of the two insects 

 might seem to indicate. Their lazy, flapping flight is in 

 harmony with the ease of the summer river ; but the little 

 sapphire dragon-flies that drift in shoals among the sedges 

 have the nimbleness of the minnows in the water-world, 



where life has a crystal lightness 

 unrelaxed by the July heats. 

 Light plays in their slender 

 bodies as in a jewel, and almost 

 as jewel-like is a delicate crim- 

 son dragon-fly of the same size, 

 which is more rarely seen by 

 the stream. Both sexes of this 

 species are of the same brilliant 

 red, but the female of the small 

 sapphire dragon-fly is dull yel- 

 low, with darker stripes. 



The kingfisher's back as it 

 shoots down the arcaded channel 

 has the same sapphire gleam 

 that harbours in the bodies of 

 the dragon-flies. Compared 

 with the brilliant blue of its 

 back, the ruddy chestnut of its 

 breast seems almost dusky ; and 

 even its back loses much of its brilliance as the bird comes 

 to rest upon a willow-bough, and the light ceases to play 

 on its metallic feathers. As it sits and eyes the stream 

 below, waiting for the chance to plunge upon a minnow, 

 the two white patches on the neck are often its most 

 conspicuous feature, though we seldom notice them in 

 flight. The kingfisher is heard three or four times by the 



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