THE 
GREAT LIBELLULA. 
Generic Character. 
Mouth consisting of several mandibles. 
Antennae very slender, filiform, shorter than the 
thorax. 
Wings spreading. 
Abdomen lengthened. 
Specific Character , 
Long-Bodied variegated LIBELLULA, with 
four yellow lines on the thorax. 
The variegated LIBELLULA. 
GREAT LIBELLULA or Dragon-Fly. 
This most beautiful and brilliant insect affords a 
singular instance of the wonderful diversity of form 
and manners between the larva and the complete 
state of one and the same animal. The ep'ss de- 
posited by the parent insect while it hovers over the 
waters it frequents, sink to the bottom, and after a 
certain space, hatch into larva:, which, when ar¬ 
rived at full growth, are of the figure represented 
on the annexed plate; the pupa or chrysalis itself 
differing in no other respect from the larva, than in 
shewing the rudiments of the future wings, which 
are enveloped in short cases or processes on the bask 
of the animal. The lame are remarkably voracious, 
and destroy great multitudes of the w eaker water- 
insects, being furnished with a formidable apparatus 
for seizing their prey, so constructed as to fold over 
the 
