BRITISH BUTTERFLIES 



gnats. But the gnats are not the only sufferers. Down 

 from an oak bough flits a long-tailed titmouse, evi- 

 dently in pursuit of a fly ; but it fails to catch its quarry, 

 and returns to the fence-rail beneath the branch. 

 Almost directly afterwards, the dragon-fly skims across 

 between the trees, swoops down, and appears to pick 

 off something from a thistle close to the spot where the 

 tit turned back baffled in its chase. Whether the bird 

 has attracted the attention of the dragon-fly to the 

 thistle, or whether the sight of the insect is far more 

 acute than that of the tit, I cannot tell ; I recognize, 

 however, that in the dragon-fly the power of wing is 

 much more wonderful than in the titmouse, making 

 the insect a perfect acrobat of the air, compared with 

 which the bird is like a member of some untrained 

 troupe. Having struck its prey, the dragon-fly carries it 

 to a neighbouring plant, their feeding leisurely on what 

 I afterwards find, from a fragment of chitine left on the 

 spray, to have been a bright green insect, slightly similar, 

 but for its colour, to the familiar house-fly. 



While hawking, generally along the margins of the 

 woods, the dragon-fly, if passing to and fro in a favourite 

 line of flight, inclines its head towards the ground, and 

 tilts its abdomen slightly above the thorax. Its large 

 and almost spherical eyes cover a considerable 

 field of vision, if not the entire surroundings. From 

 the shape and size of the thorax, it is at once apparent 



no 



