40 LIFE AND SPORT IN HAMPSHIRE 



in use. No flying creature has, in its wing action, 

 reached this point. The machinery of motion in the 

 flier is masked for the most part, but there is not 

 this optical delusion for us about it. A shiver, a 

 glistening of the wings of sympetruin, or of the sphinx 

 moth over the flower, show clearly enough that the 

 machine is in use. And the same may be said of 

 syrphus. But the whig action at its intensest seems 

 to come within imaginable distance of this still-looking 

 motion in the steel hand or rod revolving. 



This I notice about the whirring dragon-flies 

 quickly as they can move from spot to spot, such 

 quickness does not correspond with the pace at 

 which the wings are going ; say sympetrum can 

 move over short distances at a mile a minute; even 

 so, this speed does not strike one as very high, con- 

 sidering the intense vibration of the wings. Sympetrum 

 rests with wings spread out and flat. It always looks 

 as if it were on the point of taking to flight. This 

 resting attitude is common to the swift insects of 

 the order. Feebler fliers, such as the demoiselle, or 

 puella, the " little girl," whilst at rest, fold their wings 

 over their backs like a sleeping butterfly. 



But for a sort of jugglery of flight, not a bird nor 

 an insect, but a bat, I think, comes first. There is one 

 of the larger bats whose exercises on a July evening 

 at sundown are almost painful to watch at least after 

 the eye has strained to follow them closely for a few 

 minutes it desires a little respite. This bat I took at 



