176 FLIES. 



with a piece of muslin, gause, or pricked 

 paper, to keep the animals safe, and admit 

 them air for respiration. 



The Libellula. — Dragon Fly 



These insects, sometimes called by the 

 very improper title of horse-stingers, exhibit 

 an instance scarcely less striking than the 

 butterfly, of that strange dissimilitude in 

 point of form, under which one and the same 

 animal is destined to appear in the different 

 periods of its existence. Perhaps few per- 

 sons not particularly conversant in the history 

 of insects, would imagine that these highly 

 brilliant and lively animals, which may be 

 seen flying with such strength and rapidity 

 round the meadows, and pursuing the smaller 

 insects with the velocity of a hawk, had once 

 been inhabitants of the water, and that they 

 had resided for a very long space of time 

 in that element before they assumed their 

 flying form. This insect makes its appear- 

 ance principally towards the decline of sum- 



