
NEUROPTERA. 421 
| begin to eat it. Ihave remarked that they do not spare those 
}of their own kind, but that they eat each other up when they can, 
jand I have also seen them devouring very small fish which I put 
ibythem. It is very difficult for other insects to avoid their blows, 
i because, walking along generally in the water very gently, and, 
as it were, with measured steps, almost in the same way a cat does 
on the look-out for birds, they suddenly dart forward their mask 
jand seize their prey instantaneously.” * Fig. 893 represents, to 
ithe left, the larva of the dragon-fly, with the instrument of attack 
which we have called a “mask,’’ and which it is making use of 

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Fig. 393.—Larva of the Libellula and the perfect insect emerging. 
or seizing a small insect; on the right, the adult dragon-fly 
oming out of the nymph. 
The respiration of these larve is very singular. Their abdomen 
s terminated by appendages which they open to allow the water to 
venetrate into the digestive tube, whose sides are furnished with 
sulls communicating with the trachee. The water, deprived of 
Xygen, is then thrown out, and the larva advances thus in the 
vater by the recoil. It has no tufts of lateral gills, which in the 
* Charles de Geer, “ Mémoires pour servir 4 l’Histoire des Insectes,’’ tome ii, 
© partie, p. 674. 


















