CHAPTER VIII 



WILD LIFE ON A SURREY MOOR (Continued) 



THE dragon fly has been rightly named from a 

 popular point of view. He is a monster. Whilst 

 eating my lunch one day on an improvised seat of 

 heather stalks, with my back resting against the shady 

 side of a tree, along came a gaily coloured dragon fly 

 and pitched upon the stalk of a trailing frond of furze 

 not ten inches from my face. It was a member of a 

 small species and did not measure more than an inch in 

 length, with a body ringed in bright blue and white. 

 To my horror I discovered it was in the act of shearing 

 the wings and legs off a live fly almost half its own 

 length. A sudden movement on my part, made with 

 the idea of saving the unfortunate victim, only ended in 

 the murderer skimming away like a flash with his prey 

 still tightly gripped between his cruel jaws. 



Nemesis sometimes overtakes these bold marauders, 

 however, for if they happen to forget themselves so far 

 as to alight upon the sticky leaves of a Venus 's fly-trap 

 the chances are that they remain there and are slowly 

 digested by the plant. In my wanderings I have 

 come upon several individuals, large and small, 

 thus entangled and inevitably doomed to a lingering 

 death. 



Both the stonechat and the whinchat love wide, un- 



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