PART I. GENERAL 
INTRODUCTION 
RAGONFLIES are rapacious insects of large 
size, brilliant colors, and very striking form. 
They fly by day throughout the summer 
season about the borders of all ponds and 
streams and are well known to everyone; 
_ especially familiar are those forms that skim 
= over the mirroring surface of still water in 
tireless flight. Their immature stages dwell 
in the water, where they are less easily 
observed. In allstages they are among the more important of nature’s 
lesser carnivores. 
The beauty of the dragonfly is that of the sleek, ferocious beast; 
its agility signifies prowess. There are other insects hardly more 
beautiful but of gentler habits, that have met with more popular 
interest and favor; but all naturalists speak with enthusiasm of the 
sure and graceful flight of dragonflies, and of their glittering metallic 
adornment. Dr. L. O. Howard in his Insect Book rates them next to 
butterflies as the most beautiful of insects. 
Of course the poets have sensed both their beauty and their prowess. 
It was their color that appealed to Thomas Moore who spoke of them 
as ‘‘beautiful blue damselflies.’’ Rossetti completed a picture of a warm 
sleepy summer noon with the lines: 

Deep in the sun searched depths the dragonfly 
Hangs like a blue thread loosened from the sky. 
Their motions caught Riley’s interest: 
And the dragonfly in light 
Burnished armor shining bright, 
Came tilting down the river 
In a wild bewildered flight. 
Longfellow had a similar fancy of an armored knight, for he sings 
in ‘‘Fleur-de Lis’’: 
The burnished dragonfly is thine attendant. 
And tilts against the field, 
And down the listed sunbeam rides resplendent 
In steel blue mail and shield. 
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