DEACON-FLIES. 273 



lace-wing, of surpassing elegance and beauty, are as com- 

 monly overlooked, on account of their comparatively incon- 

 spicuous 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 cap- 

 ture a living specimen of the large green dragon-fly* now so 

 abundant, let them look, en attendant, at one of a smaller 

 speciesf 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 



t Agrion. 



