The three beautiful and rapacious insects forming the subject of this 

 vignette, are Dragon, Scorpion, and Lacewing Flies. The first, a small and 

 common species (Agrion), rests upon a hedge while discussing its cannibal 

 repast, a captured gnat. Hovering just above is the Dragon-Fly's enemy, 

 and sometimes conqueror, the Scorpion-Fly (Panorpa), so called from the 

 appendage to its tail. To its left appears the graceful Lacewing (ffemerobius), 

 green and golden-eyed ; the rose-leaf to the right, below, being occupied by a 

 grub, or larva (magnified), of the same carnivorous insect busy in its usual 

 occupation of destroying Aphides. 



FAIR AND FIERCE. 



HERE are now to be seen almost everywhere, 

 hawking about lanes and hedges in search of 

 prey fair as the sunshine, and fierce as its 

 meridian rays three insect families of the 

 Linnaean order Neuroptera, which are well 

 worth observing for their beauty, and studying for the pecu- 



