DEAGON-rLIES. 147 



I can see some which are big; they are striped with yellow 

 and green-tinted black. Their males are generally of a slate- 

 colour; some few males, however, are yellow as well as the 

 females. Some are of a dark and shining blue, with black 

 spots at the extremities of the wings; their females are of a 

 beautiful golden green. . 



Their manner of making love is singular for insects, al- 

 though by no means uncommon with men. It is by per- 

 severance, and the annoyance they cause by an almost hostile 

 assiduity, that the males succeed in seducing the beauty that 

 has won their hearts, generally from the middle of September 

 till the middle of October. We shall not be long before we 

 see an example, for there is a green and gold female just 

 alighted on a rose-flowered reed. She glitters coquettishly in 

 the sun: a blue male perceives her; he rushes towards her, 

 seizes her by the throat, and carries her off through the air, 

 and will not let her go till she has consented to crown 

 his flame. 



The waters and their banks have their trees, their flowers, 

 and their butterflies; the last of which are these libellules. 

 There is another kind of libellule, or demoiselle, which, to 

 you or me, singularly resembles that we have just been 

 looking at, but between which naturalists discover great 

 differences. We shall not meet with them here : they have 

 not lived under water, as the others have done ; on the con- 

 trary, it was in the sand, and beneath the most ardent sun, 

 that they went through their first state. It is more than 

 probable we may fall in with them in the course of our 

 journey. 



Upon the surface of the water are spread some large round 

 and shining leaves, of a sombre green colour; upon these 

 leaves bloom beautiful double white roses. It is the water-lily 

 of our ponds. As long as there is any cold to be dreaded, it 

 keeps its leaves rolled up under the water; but as soon as 

 fine weather seems certain, it elongates the stalks of its leaves, 

 and they rise and spread themselves upon the surface of the 

 water ; the flowers soon spring from the water as buds, and 

 then blow : at night they close their petals, and resume the 

 form of buds. When the flower is fecundated, it no longer 

 requires either air or sun; it again descends beneath the 



