i 9 8 SUMMER 



exceedingly rapid, making them the swallow of the insect 

 world. The eggs are laid in water. The full-grown larva 

 climbs up the stem of some plant till it is above water, when 

 its skin splits longitudinally along the dorsal surface, and the 

 adult dragon gradually works its way out. Its wings are 

 at first flabby and shrivelled. They soon expand and assume 

 their proper form.' 



The complete creature is worthy of the miracle of its 

 second birth. No more splendid thing emerges into June 

 than the dragon-fly, nor any which has more of the glory of 

 summer. When they first appeared we all compared the mono- 

 plane with a dragon-fly ; it was the first comparison that 

 sprang to the mind and eye ; and soaring flight is perhaps 

 the dragon-fly's master of attribute. There is no spectacle in 

 nature more wonderful, no ' crowded hour ' more glorious, 

 than the first of the flights. Not once or twice the writer 

 has watched them emerge from a certain lilied pond. The 

 pond indeed was so thick with lilies that you could scarcely 

 see the water. If one watched at the due summer dates you 

 could make almost sure of seeing the brown masked ugly 

 grub labour up the stem, as if even this splendid resurgent 

 life were hardly worth while. The man of science and the 

 poet have both watched, and if they were classical they 

 have perhaps recalled the Virgilian lines which fit exactly 

 this ponderous difficult crawl, 



' Sed revocare gradum superasque evadere ad auras 

 Hoc opus, hie labor est.' 



' But, ah, to win the upper air, 

 What labour and what work is there.' 



The process is well known ; it is common to all metamorphosis 

 in one form or another. The case splits, the imago pushes 

 its way out, and in this case uses the old case, as the clematis 



