4 DRAGONFLIES OF NORTH AMERICA 
Their picturesque fitness in natural scenery has been appreciated by 
certain Japanese poets, as witness these lines gathered and translated 
by the late Lafcadio Hearn: 
Lonesomely clings the dragonfly 
To the underside of the leaf— 
Ah, the autumn rains. 
O the thin shadow of the dragonfly’s wings 
In the light of sunset. 
Like a fleeting of crimson gossamer threads, 
The flashing of the dragonflies. 
Amy Lowell celebrates their swiftness with the lines: 
Across the newly plastered wall 
The darting of red dragonflies 
Is like the shooting 
Of blood-tipped arrows.* 
There are few more simple or satisfying word pictures than are con- 
tained in this couplet by Paul Heyse: 
Ich sitz am Bach, und sehe die Libellen 
Sich fliehen und jagen in der Sommerluft. 
The poets of many nations have found inspiration in the life history 
of the dragonfly, which, grovelling for months in the mud and silt of 
some stagnant stream, finally, with mighty effort, casts off the 
nymphal skin to live thereafter as a lord of the upper air, ever on the 
wing in the golden sunlight. 
To the dragonfly are attributed all sorts of malevolent powers. 
Some of the names in common use testify to this: as ‘‘devil’s darning 
needles” they sew up the ears of the truant school boy; as ‘‘snake- 
feeders’ and ‘‘snake-doctors” they minister to dreaded serpents; 
while the belief in their possession of a poisonous sting is so widespread 
that many ignorant persons avoid them as they would wasps or bees. 
But there are other pleasanter popular names, such as ‘‘mosquito 
hawks,” suggesting a service that they render us, and ‘‘damselflies” 
implying an attractive appearance and personality. 
We find an interesting reflection of the popular attitude toward 
the dragonflies, and a recognition of their ‘‘murderous instincts” in 
the specific names which the older entomologists bestowed upon them. 
There is a whole series of names connecting the dragonfly with snakes, 
* In Time of War, p. 17. 
