72 OUR INSECT FRIENDS AND FOES 



and seem to hunt down and tear their winged 

 victims limb! from limb, out of sheer love of 

 wanton slaughter and destruction. 



Nor is this singularly rapacious character 

 confined to the adult insect, the . Dragon-fly 

 throughout the whole of its complete metamor- 

 phosis displaying a most sanguinary disposition. 

 The female Dragon-fly deposits her eggs upon or 

 just beneath the surface of the water ; or, as is 

 the habit of several species, may make incisions 

 in the succulent, submerged stems of the water 

 plants, depositing a single egg in each incision. 

 The larvae soon make their escape, and spend 

 their life hiding or stealthily creeping about 

 amongst the stems of the plants at the bottom 

 of the pond. They are generally of a brown or 

 greenish hue, and have large heads, somewhat 

 flatter than in the adult stage, and the compound 

 eyes are set wider apart than in the perfect 

 insect. The body is more or less cylindrical in 

 shape, carrying three pairs of slender legs on 

 the under-surface of the thorax, and the abdomen 

 gradually tapers posteriorly, terminating in the 

 rectal tracheal gills, which in some species 

 project from the tip of the body as three semi- 

 transparent leaflets. As the larva grows, it 

 casts its skin from time to time, this stage of its 

 life lasting for a year or more. The respiration 

 of the Dragon-fly larvae is effected in more than 

 one way, that is to say, in the early stages of 

 their growth these larvae obtain the most, if 

 not the whole, of their air supply by absorbing 

 the dissolved air from the water by means of the 

 rectal tracheal leaflets ; or by drawing into the 



