62 



back into the water. On one occasion the same observer 

 was able to watch a nymph casting its skin in the water — a 

 process that has not, I beHeve, been previously described. 

 The method is given on p. 257 of the " Entomologist " for 

 last year. 



For several years past I have been trying to breed so as 

 to identify the nymphs of the British dragonflies, and 

 perhaps you will allow me to occupy a few moments in 

 pointing out our position with regard to them, and I might 

 say that any assistance during the coming season would be 

 much appreciated. 



The dragonflies have always been a more or less neglected 

 order, and they have received even more scant attention as 

 nymphs than they have as imagines. Thomas Mouffet, 

 writing in the reign of Charles the Second says (I am quoting 

 from Topsel's translation of the " Insectorum Theatrum " 

 in 1658) : — " Countrymen, for the most part of them, are of 

 opinion that these flies are ingendered out of the worms that 

 grow from the water bullrush putrified, which, if I should 

 yield to be true, yet doth it not take away copulation, and 

 putting forth of worms from their own bodies, whereb}- the}' 

 might from time to time increase and perpetuate their 

 propagation." Mouffet evidently does not put much faith 

 in the vulgar idea, and when treating of water insects, gives 

 a figure which closely resembles an ^schnid nymph, but 

 there is no reference to it, unless it is this figure he means 

 when he speaks of "water grasshoppers." 



Even in 1712, Cyprian, in his " Historiae Animalium," 

 speaks of a water insect, which evidently was accustomed to 

 be looked upon as " Scorpium aquaticum," but which, he 

 says, Redi affirms to be no other than the nymph of Libella. 



But in 1680, some thirty years before Cyprian's book, 

 Swammerdam had given a very good life-history of a dragon- 

 fly, which from the well-executed figures in the various 

 stages, from egg to imago, must be a species of Gomphns. 

 (I have made use of Hill's translation of 1758). Here we 

 find an accurate description of a cylindrical egg, and a 

 correct figure and description of the method of copulation. 

 But Swammerdam makes a strange mistake when he says 

 " the food of the nymph is soft mud and a fine earthy sub- 

 stance wherein they live." His full description of this 

 Gomphns is followed by a shorter notice of a nymph belong- 

 ing to each of four other sub-families. 



Roesel, too, in 1749, in his " Insecten-belustigung," gives 

 a considerable space to his account of the dragonflies, and 



