COLLECTING AND PRESERVING 
HE chief instrument for collecting dragonflies i8 
an insect net: and the requirements are, that it 
should be large and light and strong; large in 
diameter, so as to sweep a big section of the 
atmosphere; light in weight, so that it may be 
swung quickly; and strong, so that it will not 
break or tear. In this chase, a net is certain 
to receive hard usage. The complement of 
the net is, of course, the killing bottle; cyanide, 
or whatever preferred. 
The beginner will soon learn that main 
strength will avail little in the capture of the big dragonflies. They 
can fly faster than he can run; they can dodge quicker than he can turn; 
and they can go where he cannot follow. He must study their habits, 
and adapt his methods and his strategy to them. 
He will probably soon learn by observation that many of the large 
ones tend to follow a regular beat in their flight, and then he will 
station himself where they will fly past, and he will wait. He will 
learn by experience that they dodge best when approached from the 
front; and then he will keep his net down out of sight until they are 
passing and sweep them into it by a stroke from the rear. Even then 
he will sweep the vacant air many, many times; and some of the 
finest dragonflies will hover about him most tantalizingly without 
ever coming within reach of his net. 
That there is an element of sport in dragonfly chasing is nowhere 
better brought out than in Kennedy’s account (’17, p. 551) of his first 
capture of a male of Gomphus intricatus on the Humboldt River in 
Nevada. 
Until late in the afternoon I saw only two of this small species, and these 
females, both of which were wild and unapproachable. But about four o’clock 
in the afternoon I flushed a male from a clump of rose bushes; and with that 
suspense, which comes to a collector perhaps once a season as he sees a prize 
of prizes flying away, waited several very long moments, while he decided 
whether to alight or to fly across the river out of my reach. Indifferent to danger 
he lit on my side of the river but in the safest place possible, as he chose a bare 
patch of ground in the midst of a broad area of salt grass. As salt grass at its 
best is only six inches high there was no cover whatever to aid in stalking him. 
Resorting to the only antics available, I very slowly approached him on my 
hands and knees and was greatly relieved when I got close enough to see that he 
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