ON A DRAGON FLY. 229 



Space will limit me to mode of capture and life-habit mostly, aud a 

 full description of the mask apparatus, with its double joints aud 

 hinges, seems better suited to a mechanical magazine than one on 

 natural history ; but of its fomi aud anatomy an excellent aud full 

 account can be found in Kirby and Speuce's or Westwood's 

 Entomology. 



The larvjB cau be caught by sweeping against aud through the 

 vegetation round the sides of pools with a stroug net, or thev may 

 be found in hollow pieces of old wood, into which they will crawl and 

 hide if jilaced in the shallows near the side ; another good plan is 

 to shovel up smartly some of the surface soil at the base of the 

 rushes, etc., aud throw it on the sloping bank, then with a fiue rose- 

 nozzle of a watering pot, wash out the mud steadily so that it drains 

 back, when the chances are you will see one of the larvae. 



This strange being seems as ill-born as Caliban, and is the veriest 

 dragon from the beginning, for it would appear that it is the nature of the 

 embryo — of this alone of all embryos — to have the trick of always taking 

 an obverse position in the egg. 



The respiration might not incorrectly, I think, be called a 

 perspiration only, and contains the principle of a patent to beat the 

 screw propeller, if one only kne%v how to apply it, and one is set 

 guessing if it is the inversion in the egg which has turned about the 

 action of the breathing so curiously. I hope this order of being is not 

 fated to be evil for ever because it had not the benefit of proper 

 inspiration at first. 



As for the larva, it is more masked or truly larva-like than any other 

 I know. Its form, in the parts of head, trunk, and abdomen, seems an 

 ensemble preserved to us in microed size, typical of life on the 

 malignant side that became dominant aud monstrous through the 

 three great geological periods. In its jaws it has the faculty for 

 snapping possessed by the huge mollusc ; in its neck and body seg- 

 ments the writhing of the saurian ; in its legs the grip of the 

 cephalopod, aud in the abdomen the vices that held to the mammalian. 



In habit it has the stealth of a cat. It can prowl like a wolf, snatch 

 like a monkey, snap like a crocodile, and bite like a bull-dog. 



In fact, in both its states of water and air it can do everything 

 wicked, except the one thing it popularly is supposed to do best — 

 namely, sting, aud it has a mean way of rarely seizing anything larger 

 or stronger than itself, choosing small fry and never tackling big folk. 



A caddis-worm, after the covering is cut off, makes a good supper 

 for a dragon-fiy larva ; but it is careful to seize the caddis in the rear 

 of the head for fear it would seem of the powerful mouth with which 

 the latter is armed. These greedy creatures will also take an ordinary 

 garden worm nearly every morning. One about their own length 

 suits them best, for if the worm be too long so that one end of it can 

 get a hold or purchase between two stones, it will draw away, dragging 

 the larva until its large round jutting eyes meet the obstruction, and 



