58 THE BROOK BOOK 



It is hard to catch a dragon-fly. Any one who 

 has ever tried will agree with me ; but I did it. I 

 think it was the very one I had been watching. 

 It made a great fuss in my net, but I knew better 

 than to fear its "needle." Long ago I had learned 

 how harmless this creature is. It might have saved 

 its strength, for I had meant it no harm. It was 

 the work of but a moment to discover on the tip 

 of its long abdomen a cluster of pale yellow eggs. 

 The creature had been washing these into the water 

 a few at a time. Ah! here was the link that had 

 long been missing from my chain of observations. 

 I had seen the dragon-fly come from the water 

 and escape from its nymph skin, but now I could 

 understand how the young ones happened to be in 

 the water in the first place. Their mother had 

 left them in their snug little egg cradles, for the 

 water to toss and rock until they were ready to 

 hatch into little groveling water-babies. It is well 

 that the eggs were left in the water, for young 

 dragon-flies and damsel-flies are aquatic. In their 

 native place they are fairly able to take good care 

 of themselves and to make life a constant series of 

 narrow escapes or sudden deaths to a myriad of 

 smaller insects. Their favorite dish is mosquito 

 larvae au naturel, which fact greatly endears them to 

 the hearts of the enlightened. But dragon-flies are 

 not the only "birds of prey" inhabiting our waters. 

 They, too, have their troubles, and fall easy victims 

 to such larger creatures as are fond of dainty bits. 

 This is nature's way of keeping down the number 

 of dragon-flies. If all the young of all the dragon- 



