202 Marsh. 



it is an insect, but it does not go through its metamorphoses 

 quite like a butterfly or moth, nor like a beetle. As you 

 know, all these have three very distinct and separate stages 

 besides the egg the caterpillar, the chrysalis, and the 

 imago or perfect insect. In the second of these stages the 

 insects are in a most helpless state ; they are almost 

 incapable of movement, neither eat nor stir, and have to 

 adopt various means of protection to enable them to escape 

 from their enemies. The differences, too, between caterpillar 

 and chrysalis, and between chrysalis and imago, are also 

 very great, but in dragon-flies 



" Those 



Dull-coated things, that making slide apart 

 Their dusk wing-cases, all beneath there burns 

 A jewelled harness, ere they pass and fly ' 



these changes are not so marked, and with the exception of 

 the final metamorphosis there is but little transition from 

 one stage to the other. Their caterpillars are provided with 

 six good walking legs, like the adult, and they run about 

 the muddy bottoms of pools and streams, devouring all 

 kinds of small insects which come in their way. They are 

 very like the perfect insect, except that they are at first 

 much smaller, and have no wings. As they get larger they 

 cast their skins, like the larvae of other insects, and 

 presently traces of wings appear. The insect is now in its 

 pupa or nymph stage, corresponding with the chrysalis of a 

 butterfly, but it still keeps up its active habits and its 

 character for rapacity, disposing of as many victims as in 

 its earlier stage. After a time it ceases to feed, crawls up 

 a reed or other water plant, and when above the surface of 

 the water, fixes itself firmly to a resting-place. Soon the 



