308 DRAGON-FLIES. 



narrator as a madman. Yet, this is just what a dragon- 

 fly has done, flies being substituted for fowls and large 

 garden spiders for geese. The insect, when accidentally 

 struck asunder, really has been known to eat the whole 

 of its own abdomen when presented to it, and any other 

 dragon-fly would probably act in a similar manner. 



This fierce and active terrestrial life is not a long one, 

 and may be measured by weeks rather than months. It 

 depends upon the supply of food, and when insects begin 

 to fail in numbers as the season becomes colder, the 

 dragon-fly can live no longer. Drawn by a fresh instinct, 

 it again seeks the water in which it had so long lived, 



