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fans the rushes, and the ear is soothed with the murmur of the water. There they 
rest, hid in the recesses of the water plants. When I see them, the remembrance 
of my past summer days rushes upon me ; I think of the time when their purple 
fluttering wings and green brilliance first met my view, when I saw the world as a 
paradise created only for enjoyment, and knew not that, drilled by disappointment 
and commanded by care, I must take my place in the ranks, to fight with the dif¬ 
ficulties and troubles which life in its onward progress too soon unfolded to my 
view. 
But excessively beautiful as the Dragon-flies, or Demoiselles , as the French 
call them, confessedly are, and they are a favourite tribe with me, they are rapa¬ 
cious in the extreme, the very eagles of the insect world. They seem to flit 
along carelessly on easy wing above the flowery cinctured streams, as if bent only 
on contemplative enjoyment, or rise higher in air apparently to revel in the sun¬ 
beams ; but should any minuter insects appear in view, they dash upon them with 
the rapidity of the Falcon, their armed tarsi secures the victim, and their capaci¬ 
ous maw soon encloses him from sight. One of our largest species, (Anax im- 
perator , Leach), may sometimes be seen in the very hottest blaze of a summer’s 
noon, assuming to himself the sovereignty of an entire pool, round which he wings 
his superb flight, offering instant battle to any intruder, and keeping the course 
clear for himself only, with the utmost pertinacity. But although thus matchless 
in their aerial movements, those whose wings remain horizontal while at rest, when 
prostrate on earth or in a low situation, have considerable difficulty at once to give 
sufficient power to the muscles that set them in motion ; and I have often observed 
the great variegated Dragon-fly (Libellula varia , Shaw) make many ineffectual 
efforts before it could rise from its position; hence early in the morning they may 
be easily captured when found at rest. Once, however, on the wing, nothing can 
exceed the rapidity of their motion, and their able and diversified gyrations in the 
air. Now hovering low by the hedge side, a radiant beam glances upon their 
polished mail, and a jewelled blaze of sapphire and lapis lazuli flashes upon the 
eye—the next moment lost amid the labyrinthine foliage of the oak, they appear, 
vanish, and reappear, swift as meteors in the autumnal sky—now they are lost in 
the wood—again they hurry by with the velocity of an impelled arrow. Thus, in 
the fury of the chase they sometimes wander very wide from their usual haunts, 
dash over the recesses of the garden for insects, and are occasionally hurried out 
to sea. But mark, for a moment, the interesting attitude of that broad-backed yel¬ 
low Dragon-fly who seems falling into the pool, so close does she approach to the 
edge of the water. It is the female of Libellula depressa. She recovers herself 
ere she has quite touched the water, and rearing up extends her abdomen and de¬ 
posits an egg in the translucent element. On she flies repeating the curious pro¬ 
cess without rest, just touching the water with her abdomen, but npver once over¬ 
balancing herself, while thus engaged on the wing in effecting the transposition of 
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