116 INTRODUCTION TO ZOOLOGY. 



NEUROPTERA.* 



Fig. 99. INDIAN LIBELLULA, OB DRAGON-FLY. 



This order of insects includes the Dragon-flies, the May- 

 flies, the Lacewinged-flies, the Ephemera, and the destructive 

 Termites, or white ants. They have four large-sized wings, 

 equal in size, furnished with numerous nervures, and pre- 

 senting, in some species, an appearance of the most delicate 

 network. The jaws are fitted for mastication. 



No one who looks upon any of our native Dragon-flies 

 (Libellulce, Fig. 86) hawking over a pond on a bright summer 

 day, and marks the facility with which their insect prey Is 

 taken and devoured, could ever suppose that these swift- 

 flying creatures had* but a few weeks before been inhabitants 

 of the water. Yet it is there the early stages of their life 

 are passed. The female has been observed to descend the 

 leaf or stem of an aquatic plant to deposit her eggs. The 

 larva, when excluded, is not less ferocious than the perfect 

 insect, and is furnished with a singular apparatus, a kind of 

 mask, which is used not only for seizing its prey, but for 

 holding it while the jaws perform their customary ofiice.f On 

 one occasion we lifted one of these larva?, when feeding on a 



* From two Greek words, one signifying a nerve, the other a wing. 

 The term " nerves" is commonly applied to the nervures or minute 

 tubes by which the wings are expanded. The order contains about 

 seventy Irish species. 



f For a . lucid description of this instrument, see- Kirby and Spence, 

 vol. iii. page 125. 



