98 Animal Life 
A long day at the end of April always seems too short for a dredging expedition 
at Black Pond; but our pleasures are not at an end, for at home we have prepared 
a number of bell glasses with growing water plants for the reception of our captured 
nymphs, where, though surrounded with unnatural environment, we are enabled to 
watch their habits and development at leisure. 
They soon make themselves at home if supped with a liberal diet of small 
worms, which the nymphs seize with a convenient “vatcher,’ termed a mask. This 
is somewhat like a miniature quick extension ladder attached to the under side of 
the throat, from which it projects back, restimg just 
between the front legs, where there is a sharp angled 
joint, the forward and longer part terminating with a 
shovel-shaped double-action clippmg machine. On _ the 
appearance of a worm or other kind of prey the nymph 
sneakingly creeps near to within striking distance, when 
like a flash the extension is shot out, the worm seized, 
and as rapidly the action is reversed, the extension 
drawn in bringing with it the prey, which is brought 
under and in fact right between the true mandibles. It 
is interesting to watch this wonderful arrangement at 
work upon a worm, and absolutely exciting when the 
other end is seized by another nymph, resulting in a 
terrible tug of war. 
Fed and fattened upon such diet, they soon arrive 
at maturity, when their dull eyes assume a golden green 
colour and they protrude their heads above water for a 
day or two, slowly climbing up some leaf stem until 
they find a suitable spot where, on the under side, they 
“take hold” firmly with their sharp claws, driving them 
into the cuticle, them body hanging down. 
Now that most wonderful of all changes is about 
to take place; the nymph having completed its one or 
two years’ sojourn in the water as a wingless worm- 
eating “grub,” will shortly assume the glorious one of 
a winged insect—and such wings! the most delicate 
gauze-like structure held together by miniature girders 
and cross bars that put all our modern scientific 
conceptions far into the shade. 
Let us take one example of the blue and green 
bodied dragon flies, Brachytron pratense (I am compelled 
to use this name, as there is no distinctive English one), 
which at 10 am. as a nymph was wandering about in 
the water, searching for a convenient twig or leaf stem 
up which to crawl and go through its final transformation. After considerable tine 
spent in going up and down and round about, it at last found a vacant place between 
the two ‘old husks” on the right, from which, as well as from those attached to the 
opposite twig, similar species have emerged. Here, as seen at Fig. 1, it fixes its claws 
fnnly into the rough bark and hangs for some time until the moisture has draimed oft 
its body. Almost imperceptibly it 1s making internal muscular effort to burst its skin 
just at the back of the head and thorax; this it succeeds in doing at 10.42 (Fig. 2), 
where a small tuft of down is seen protruding from between the vertical slit, followed 
by the swelling thorax (Fig. 3); a minute later and the head is free (Fig. 4). 
Fig. 5. 
