1 89 1 -9 2.] Dragon-Flies : their Life- History. 11 



are perhaps those witnessed in 1816 and in May 1839, when 

 cloud-like swarms were seen at Weimar, Gbttingen, &c. As 

 illustrative of the swarms in which they appear, and of the 

 use to which they may be put, Alfred Eussell Wallace states, 

 in his book on the Malay Archipelago, that in Lombock, an 

 island at the east end of Java, " every day boys were to be 

 seen walking along the roads and by the hedges and ditches, 

 catching dragon-flies with bird-lime. They carry a slender 

 stick with a few twigs at the end well anointed, so that the 

 least touch captures the insect, whose wings are pulled off 

 before it is consigned to a small basket. The dragon-flies are 

 so abundant at the time of the rice-flowering that thousands 

 are soon caught in this way. The bodies are fried in oil with 

 onions and preserved shrimps, or sometimes alone, and are 

 considered a great delicacy." 



The following extract from Mr W. H. Hudson's ' Natur- 

 alist in La Plata,' regarding the habits of dragon-flies under 

 certain conditions, will be found most interesting : — 



One of the most curious things I have encountered in my observations on 

 animal life relates to a habit of the larger species of dragon-flies inhabiting 

 the Pampas and Patagonia. Dragon-flies are abundant throughout the 

 country wherever there is water. There are several species, all more or 

 less brilliantly coloured. The kinds that excited my wonder, from their 

 habits, are twice as large as the common widely distributed insects, being 

 three inches to four inches in length, and, as a rule, they are sober 

 coloured, although there is one species — the largest among them — entirely 

 of a brilliant scarlet. This kind is, however, exceedingly rare. All 

 the different kinds (of the large dragon-flies), when travelling, associate 

 together; and occasionally, in a flight composed of countless thousands, one 

 of these brilliant - hued individuals will catch the eye, appearing as 

 conspicuous among the others as a poppy or scarlet geranium growing 

 alone in an otherwise flowerless field. The most common species — and in 

 some cases the entire flight seems to be composed of this kind only — is the 

 Aeschna bonariensis Rami., the prevailing colour of which is pale blue. 

 But the really wonderful thing about them all alike is, that they appear 

 only when flying before the south-west wind, called pampero — the wind 

 that blows from the interior of the pampas. The pampero is a dry, cold 

 wind, exceedingly violent. It bursts on the plains very suddenly, and 

 usually lasts only a short time, sometimes not more than ten minutes ; it 

 comes irregularly, and at all seasons of the year, but is most frequent in 

 the hot season, and after exceptionally sultry weather. It is in summer 

 and autumn that the large dragon-flies appear, not with the wind, but — 

 and this is the most curious part of the matter — in advance of it ; and 

 inasmuch as these insects are not seen in the country at other times, and 



