70 
When hunting for food the creature slowly crawls about until its 
keen eyes spy some likely victim. Cautiously it approaches its prey 
until within about half an inch of it. Then with a rapid movement, 
the mask is unfolded and shot out, and the victim is seized and 
dragged to the mouth of its captor. The true jaws are now brought 
into action and pieces are bitten from the victim, which all the 
while is held firmly by this mask. When crawling over the mud and 
water weeds hunting for prey the creature uses its six legs, which, 
however, are useless for rapid progression. When alarmed it presses 
its legs flat against its body and shoots through the water with 
considerable rapidity. But by what means it swims is a puzzle to 
many, for it seems to be jerked along by an invisible thread pulled 
by some invisible hand. The abdomen is hollow, and by means of 
powerful muscles is made to expand to its largest size. Water then 
rushes in through an orifice at the tail. These muscles then cause 
the abdomen to suddenly contract and forcibly eject the water 
contained within. This latter action has the effect of swiftly forcing 
the creature forward. When the insect swims this alternate action 
is rapidly repeated and maintained. This is quite easily' demon' 
straied by putting the creature in some transparent vessel of water, 
the bottom of which has a thin coating of clean sand. When the 
dragon-fly pupa swims about near the bottom, sand will be blown 
away like dust by the jets of water extruded by the insect. When 
the pupa is full fed it chooses some water plant which has leaves 
growing above the surface of the pond Up this stem it climbs 
until its head is just above the water. In this position it remains 
for some hours, while rapid development is going on within. Shortly 
after dusk the creature suddenly runs to the top of the water plant, 
remaining there in an inverted position for about an hour. A slight 
wriggling occurs, and all at once the skin splits down the back just 
between the wing cases. Slowly the delicate green shoulders of the 
future dragon fly appear from out of this slit and are gradually 
followed by the bead, with its enormous shining pair of compound 
eyes. Next the legs are drawn out. and part of the body is wriggled 
from the old skin. All this so far has taken barely ten minutes, and 
now the creature hangs to the old pupal skin by means of its tail. 
(See illustration on Page 20.) Limp and motionless, it remains so 
suspended for fully half an hour to rest after its exhausting struggles. 
There is another sudden movement, and this time the insect has 
jerked itself up. taken hold of the old skin with its legs, and d'agged 
out the remainder of its body (Page 21). The wings, which are now 
merely limp flaps the size of the old wing cases, begin to expand, for 
blood is being pumped into them from the creature's body. In less 
than ten minutes these are fully expanded (Page 22), and now the 
insect is a fully-formed dragon-fly, though its wings are still limp 
and its colours very faint. In this position it hangs all night. By 
the time the morning sunshine has appeared its wings will be hard 
and its colours bright. In the first gleam the newly-born dragon-fly 
is off on the wing searching out flies, butterflies, and even its own 
species to appease its hunger. These insects seldom seem to be 
flying in dull weather, but are particularly active during a scorch- 
ing summer day. As perfect insects they live from one to two 
months, feeding voraciously during every fine day. These transfor- 
mations almost invariably take place after dark about .July or 
August; but the insect figured was rather exceptional, being the 
only one out of some three hundred pupa confined which emerge during 
daylight. There are many species of dragon-flies found in Britain, 
and all pass through metamorphoses as described. Sometimes on 
fine summer days the sedges by the river banks are alive with these 
small delicately-coloured insects, some blue, others red, while a 
