6 Dragon-Flies : their Life-History. [Sess. 



sion the mature and now winged insect struggles out, with 

 the body weak and the wings damp, at first head downward, 

 shortly assuming an erect position to extricate its lower 

 extremity. On its defenceless condition the air aud sun soon 

 work wonders : the wings expand and stiffen, and in a little 

 while, freed from the fetters of its former existence, it appears 

 no longer a sluggish, grovelling creature, but the perfect insect, 

 an active and beautiful denizen of the air, the glancing sun- 

 beams giving now one colour, now another, to its burnished 

 body. 



Tennyson, who, with his keen observation of Nature's most 

 delicate moods and changes, would have been a great naturalist 

 if he had not been a great poet, has described its final trans- 

 formation in his poem of the " Two Voices " in the following 

 lines : — 



" To-day I saw the dragon-fly 

 Come from the wells where he did lie. 



An inner impulse rent the veil 

 Of his old husk : from head to tail 

 Came out clear plates of sapphire mail. 



He dried his wings : like gauze they grew : 

 Thro' crofts and pastures wet with dew 

 A living flash of light he flew." 



Reading these lines, one can almost imagine he feels the 

 warmth of the sunshine, and sees the gauzy -winged tyrant 

 of the insect world, with its hawk -like flight and extended 

 vision, literally seeking whom it may devour, or hovering like 

 a bird of prey to pounce upon its unsuspecting victim. It 

 may be seen hunting for insects in the neighbourhood of pools, 

 streams, and ditches in fine weather, during summer or autumn, 

 or the male and female may be frequently seen in company — 

 the latter being held by the neck with the " claspers " of the 

 male — alighting on water-plants at the surface of the water 

 to deposit their eggs, which they generally do in masses, and 

 several well-authenticated instances are on record where the 

 female has descended below the surface for this purpose. In 

 dull weather it usually remains at rest on the leaves of plants, 

 trees, &c, often on a particular spot, to which it always re- 

 turns. They have been popularly termed " Devil's darning- 



