276 POSITION OF WINGS. 



Few insects lose their beauty more rapidly with the ex- 

 tinction of life than this and others of its tribe. The beautiful 

 markings on the body soon lose their distinctive colours vari- 

 egated green, and black and yellow and the eye, so brilliant 

 and translucent in life, growing dark in death, changes finally 

 to a lump of blackness. In order to preserve the colours of 

 the body, in this and other species, collectors are in the habit 

 of emptying the trunk through a longitudinal suture beneath, 

 stuffing it with cotton, after having cleared it ; but we are not 

 aware of any process by which the large lustrous eyes can be 

 preserved with any semblance of life. 



We have spoken of the dragon-fly's four powerful pinions 

 as always open, in readiness for flight. This is generally the 

 case with the families of JEshna and Libellula but in some, 

 the wings, when at rest, are applied to the body, as in the in- 

 stances of a very common but very pretty little species,* with 

 bodies variously coloured (as blue and black red and black 

 green and black) which are, in most places, numerous over 

 ditches in May and June ; in which months another species 

 (the large black and yellow), is also not uncommon. About 

 two hundred different kinds are said to haunt the woods and 

 streams of Britain. 



From the dragon-fly, the above redoubtable giant among 

 English insects we come, by no very abrupt transition, except 

 in the great difference of their bulk, to the ^corpion-fly,f a 



* Of this is the insect figured in Vignette. f Pa/norpa, also in Vignette. 



