MANUAL OF NATURAL HISTORY. 213 



NET-WINGED INSECTS. 



Many of the insects which compose this Order 

 live, during the earlier stages of their existence 

 in the water, where some spend the greater portion 

 of their lives, for no sooner is the nuptial garb as- 

 sumed, and do their fairy sports commence, than 

 death closes their career, and in the stream which 

 gave them birth they find a grave. Others, as the 

 Dragon-flies, enjoy an serial existence for a longer 

 period, and pass as rapacious a life in the air as they 

 did before in the water ; with powerful flight they 

 course the marsh, the meadow, and the river-bank 

 in search of food, which consists of other insects 

 both in their larval and perfect states. The White- 

 Ants are universally known for the remarkable 

 nests which they construct, wonderful both for 

 size and form ; they live mostly either a terrestrial 

 or an arboreal life, possessing wings for a short 

 period only, during the season of courtship, which 

 after that period, fall or are bitten off, leaving them 

 to complete the objects of their existence on foot. 

 The tiny Thunder-Flies which we often find during 

 the summer in countless multitudes, are notorious 

 for the injury they occasionally do to particular 

 plants, and though individually small, the results 

 of their combined operations assume a degree of 

 importance which we cannot pass unnoticed, add- 

 ing another instance tending to shew, that little 



