7 8 Poachers and Poaching. 



need of these occasional rests is an erroneous 

 opinion founded upon too limited an area of 

 observation. For Cuvier has stated that M. Poey, 

 who had particularly studied the insects of Cuba, 

 informed him that at certains season of the year 

 the northerly winds bring to the city of Havannah 

 and its neighbourhood an innumerable quantity 

 of specimens of one of the species of LibeUnlcE. 

 Other instances of the periodical flights or 

 migrations of dragon-flies have been noted by 

 observers. And even butterflies have been seen 

 to migrate to distant points of land, making 

 flights of fifty or sixty miles across water. These 

 long journeys may be relieved by occasional 

 rests, as Mr. Newman and others have ascer- 

 tained that lepidopterous insects are able to 

 alight upon the water, rest awhile, and then rise 

 with apparent ease a fact readily credited 

 by fishermen, who so frequently see the green- 

 and-grey drake and other ephemera float down 

 stream, and, if not taken by the trout, suddenly 

 spring up again, and resume their aerial dances. 

 But this power of rapid movement in the dragon- 

 fly, be the rate more or less, is in just keeping 

 with its structure. The insect's body is slender, 

 the chest strongly developed, though firm ; the 

 wings, four in number, are narrow, of great 

 length, and consist of fine, thin, dry membrane, 

 stretched upon a series of lightly made costce, or 

 rafters. No wonder, then, that with such a 



