ALONG THE RIVER 83 



about the bottom of the channels, are not the larvae of May- 

 flies as is often supposed, but of the heavy reddish sedge- 

 flies which abound at evening by the water after the time of 

 the Mayflies is past. With their black heads and fore- 

 legs protruding from their case, the caddis-worms stumble 

 among the water-weeds in the clear shallow pools of the 

 little backwaters, like ants hauling a burden through the 

 grass. Brown water-boatmen flick themselves with their 

 paddles through the sun-warmed water, and larger black 

 water-beetles slant their way down like little turtles through 

 the weeds. Water-snails of many sizes, with shells in flat 

 and spiral coils of varied patterns, go delicately gliding 

 along the green blades of the weed, or tracing a little path- 

 way across the gritty floor. The swifter life of this exquisite 

 miniature water-world is supplied by the minnows hanging 

 poised to start in shoals ; and if we stir the mud beneath we 

 come upon strange dragons of the under-world sprawling 

 larvae of water-beetles, and the dragon-fly in its hideous sub- 

 aqueous form. 



Most dragon-flies are graceful in form and colour as well 

 as fleet of wing, but the most exquisite species haunt the 

 watersides from early June. The larger species that rove 

 freely through gardens, lanes, and clearings in woodlands 

 in later summer are excelled by several smaller kinds that 

 haunt the watersides. Dragon-flies are badly off for English 

 names ; ' horse-stinger ' is crudely misleading, and ' demoi- 

 selle,' which is sometimes confined to the smaller species, is 

 not really English. There are scientific Latin names for use 

 at need, but they seem stiff and out of place while the living 

 insects float by the June waterside. But it is as well to 

 know that the two commonest varieties one with wings 

 broadly splashed with metallic purple and the other with 

 rusty red are the two sexes of one species, and that when 



