THE YOUNG NATURALIST. 



133 



NATURE IN JULY. 



By ALBERT H. WATERS, B.A. 

 DRAGONFLIES. 



There is such an infinity of insects on the wing in July, and so many 

 flowers are blossoming all around 



" Now sunshine floods with golden light, 

 Mountain and mead and moorland stream," 



that it seems a hopeless task to attempt anything like a complete picture of 



the aspect of nature in July. Butterflies are conspicuously plentiful, the 



brown " gatekeepers " (S. tlthonus) are flattering about every hedgerow, in 



company with meadow browns, blues, and others. 



But for the butterflies and moths occurring in July, I must refer you to 



previous articles in the Young JSaturalist. I propose to devote this present 



paper to a consideration of another order of insects, namely, the clragonflies, 



we see so abundant at this time of the year, and give ' some hints for their 



identification. 



In order to identify dragonflies, notice should be taken in the first place 

 of the eyes, and of the form of the wings. Our British species fall naturally 

 into two groups. In the first of these the eyes are more or less contiguous : 

 notice the common brown dragonflies, you will observe they have large eyes 

 nearly touching one another. Another feature you may notice in these com- 

 mon brown dragonflies is that the hind-wings are not of the same shape as the 

 fore-wings. Look at this specimen we have just captured, you see the hind- 

 wings are dilated at the base. Now let us capture one of those pretty little 

 blue demoiselle dragonflies we see darting about. We see its eyes are 

 prominent and wide apart, and its wings are all similar in shape ; the hind- 

 wings you see are exactly the same shape as the fore- wings. Notice, too, 

 how extremely slender the abdomen is. Now if we capture a dragonfly with 

 similar wings, eyes widely separated, and a very slender abdomen, we may 

 feel sure it belongs to either the family Calopterygidse or the family Agrio- 

 nidse ; while on the other hand if the wings are dissimilar in shape, and the 

 eyes more or less contiguous, it belongs to one of the four families, Libellu- 

 lidae, Cordulidse, Gomphidse, or iEschnidse. Before we can decide to which 

 of these a doubtful specimen is to be assigned, we must observe whether the. 

 labium or lower lip is larger or smaller than the palpi. If the latter, it be- 

 longs to either the family Libellulidae or the family Cordulidse ; both of 

 which have the palpi larger than the labium. Which it is to be referred to 

 may be readily ascertained by noticing the shape of the abdomen : in the 

 family Cordulidae this last is club-shaped. 



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