THE DRAGON-FLY. 305 
To man, however, aside from its bad name and its 
repulsive aspect, which its gay trappings do not conceal, 
its whole life is beneficent. It is a scavenger, being like 
that class ugly and repulsive, and holding literally, among 
insects, the lowest rank in society. In the water, it preys 
upon young musquitoes and the larve of other noxious 
insects. It thus aids in maintaining the balance of life, 
and cleanses the swamps of miasmata, thus purifying the 
air we breathe. During its existence of three or four 
weeks above the waters, its whole life is a continued 
good to man. It hawks over pools and fields and through 
gardens, decimating swarms of musquitoes, flies, gnats, : 
and other baneful insects. It is a true Malthus’ delight, 
and, following that sanguinary philosopher, we may believe 
that our Dragon-fly is an entomological Tamerlane or Na- . 
` poleon sent into the world by a kind Providence to pre- 
vent too close a jostling among the myriads of insect life. 
We will, then, conquer our repugnance to its ugly 
looks and savage mien, and contemplate the hideous 
monstrosity, —as it is useless to deny that it combines 
the graces of the Hunchback of Notre Dame and Dickens’ 
Quilp, with certain features of its own,—for the good it 
does in Nature. 
Even among insects, a class replete with forms the very 
incarnation of ugliness and the perfection of all that is hid- 
eous in nature, our Dragon-fly is most conspicuous. Look’ 
at its enormous head, with its beetling brows, retreating 
face, and heavy under jaws,—all eyes and teeth,—and 
hung so loosely on its short, weak neck, sunk beneath its 
enormous hunchback,—for it is wofully round-shouldered, 
—while its long thin legs, shrunken as if from disease, are 
up beneath its breast, since our fiend of the air is a 
poor pedestrian. 
AMERICAN NAT., VOL. I. 89 
