FLIGHT OF DRAGON-FLIES. 183 



whose saltatory feats those of man, monkey, hunting-steed, 



squirrel, and frog itself, sink, therefore, into very tame per- 





 formances. 



As climbers, a variety of insects rival the squirrel ; while as 

 burrowers, several, but especially the mole-cricket, emulate 

 the mole. 



But if insects, their size considered, outstrip the speed of 

 all other animals in traversing the ground, and their agility in 

 bounding from off its surface, much more do they, as fliers, 

 exceed in proportionate swiftness and power the larger winged 

 tribes which travel through the air. 



Birds have, indeed, been said to surpass all other creatures 

 in rapidity of motion, as well as in the faculty of its continu- 

 ance without interruption. The swallow is calculated to fly, 

 at its usual rate, a mile in a minute, yet has even the swallow 

 been beaten in chase of a dragon-fly, which, when pursued in 

 a menagerie a hundred feet long, is recorded by Lewenhoek to 

 have baffled and kept in advance of the bird. Nor is it in 

 speed only that the flight of the dragon-fly resembles that of 

 the swallow. The swallow sweeps over the meadows on a 

 summer's evening in lightning-lrke zigzags, and the dragon- 

 fly is endowed with the power of cleaving the air in all direc- 

 tions right and left, forwards and backwards without turn- 

 ing. The swallow is said to keep up its race-horse speed for 

 ten hours on a stretch ; and most species of the dragon-fly can, 



in like manner, remain on wing for hours when hawking 

 VOL. III. 12. 



