DRAGON-FLIES. 257 



liarities of their economy. These compiise dragon-flies, scor- 

 pion-flies, and lace-wing flies ; the former, from their imposing 

 size, well known by sight to everybody ; while the two latter, 

 though both, especially the lace-wing, of surpassing elegance 

 and beauty, are as commonly overlooked, on account of their 

 comparatively inconspicuous size. 



To begin then, in deference to their superior magnitude 

 (which in some species constitute them the largest of British 

 insects), with the dragon-flies, popularly called by the French 

 " Demoiselles" partly, perhaps, in compliment to their beauty, 

 partly as a satire on Amazonian propensities. By the ignorant 

 among ourselves they are known as " horse-stingers," a com- 

 plete misnomer, seeing that the blood wherewith they delight 

 to moisten their carnivorous jaws is never, by any accident, 

 taken from those warm red streams which flow through the 

 veins of beast or man, but consists of that colder, whiter fluid, 

 which pervades the tender frames of butterfly and case-fly the 

 innocent creatures they are ever seeking to devour. 



Since our readers may not, just at pleasure, be able to 

 capture a living specimen of the large green dragon-fly -, 1 

 now so abundant, let them look, en attendant, at one of a 

 smaller species 2 depicted by our pencil. Though a minim of 

 his kind, is he not a glorious yet formidable looking creature ? 

 Mark his four large ever-expanded wings of glassy membrane, 

 with their beautiful lace-like nervures, not distributed for mere 

 adornment, but in every meander serving as channels for the 

 circulating air, which, thus spread over the surface of the 

 pinion, confers on this insect a marked pre-eminence in power 

 and permanence of flight. Observe his straight, slender body 

 so long and light contrasting with his muscular chest and 

 bulky shoulders, fit receptacles for the insertion of those 

 powerful pinions; and the legs, six in number, strong and 

 rigid, and armed with claws. But notice, above all, the head 



* Agrion. 



