190 



NATURAL HISTORY. 



t vpe of all that is savage, relentless, and bloodthirsty, the dragon-fly would 

 be our choice. From the moment of its birth until its death, usually a 

 twelve-month, it riots in bloodshed and carnage. Living beneath the 

 waters perhaps eleven months of its life, in the larva and pupa states, it is 

 literally a walking pitfall for luckless aquatic insects ; but when trans- 

 formed into a fly, ever on the wing in the pursuit of its prey, it throws off 

 all concealment, and reveals the more unblushingly its rapacious character." 

 In popular estimation, the dragon-flies or 'devil's darning-needles' are 

 horrible, and every boy in the land possesses the belief that they will sew up 

 his ears: and even when he grows to man's estate, though this aspect be 

 forgotten, he always has an antipathy towards these quick-flying, gayly 

 colored forms. In this he is wrong, wholly wrong. Despite their ferocity, 

 the dragon-flies are productive of naught but good to man ; indeed, their 

 very ferocity makes them the more his friends, for they feed wholly on 

 mosquitoes and other insect pests. As they dart through the air, their 



I'm;. 17.1. — The metamorphoses of dragon-flies. Two larvre are shown in the water catching insects 

 ti nil their ' mask ' : on the reed at the left is a larva skin; at the right a pnpa skin, from which the 

 adult in the centre has escaped. 



burnished bodies flashing their golden green in the summer sun, they are 

 constantly seizing and devouring; and before they reach their winged con- 

 dition they had the same insect-eating lives; but so peculiar are the 

 features of larval life, they deserve a paragraph by themselves. 



From the egg there hatches out a little six-footed larva, in its general 

 appearance like the two lower figures of our cut. On the back are shown 

 the two little wing-pads; while below the head is a most peculiar appara- 

 tus, the so-called ' mask.' In its ordinary state this mask is folded up below 

 the ' face,' and this aquatic monster then appears as harmless as possible; 



