THE NATURAL 



risibility, is clothed in all shades, metallic blue, reddish- 

 brown green, iris violet, tawny chrysanthemum, whatever 

 her fundamental colour she encircles her elegant barrel 

 with rings of black velvet. Naturalists divide these insects 

 into libellules, aeshnes, agrions; Fabricius disputes with 

 Linnaeus; peasants and children (for grown-ups despise 

 nature) call them "demoiselles," "vierges" and "jouven- 

 celles." l Some fly very high, in the trees, others along 

 the streams and over pond edges ; others over ferns, reeds, 

 broom. I have passed days in the sun watching them, 

 waiting to see their courtships; I have seen them, and 

 know that Reaumur has not deceived us. It was on the 

 surface of a pond among the border flowers, a morning 

 of July, a flaming morning. The "Vierge," corselet of 

 blue green, almost invisible wings, fluttered in great num- 

 bers, slowly, as if seriously; the hour of parade had ar- 

 rived. And everywhere couples formed, rings of azure 

 hung from the grass blades, trembled on leaves of the 

 water-lentil, everywhere green arrows and blue arrows 

 played at flight, and wing-brushing, at joining. The big 

 eyes and strong head of the libellule give an air of gravity 

 to the brilliancy of this spectacle. 



The ejaculatory canal opens at the ninth ring of the 

 abdomen, that is to say, at the point; the copulating 

 apparatus is fixed at the second ring, that is, near the 

 neck, and is composed of a penis, of hooks, and a reser- 

 voir: the male bending his long belly first fills the reser- 

 voir, then empties it into the organs of the female. For 



*In America we have, so far as I know, only the terms 

 "dragon fly" and "darning-needle," and for the larger ones "devil's 

 darning-needle." E. P. 



