202 LITTLE FOLKS 
However, all this is when he has grown up to be a Dragon Fly. 
He begins — as I said — a curious little fellow with six legs and no 
wings, and his home is at the bottom of a pond, where he lives for 
many months doing nothing but hunt other insects and eating them 
up. And now you'll see how useful is his mask. When in its place, 
folded back against his head, it seems to be a sort of lower lip, but 
let him catch sight of a fat grub, or tempting bug, and out darts 
the mask like a long arm — nearly as long as his whole body — as 
you see in the picture — seizes the unhappy prey in a pair of pin- 
cers at the end of the mask, and jerks back to the head, bringing 
the desired morsel to his greedy little mouth, where it soon disap- 
pears. He does the whole so quickly, that it looks to one who sees 
it, as though the victim had jumped into his mouth himself. 
Now isn't that a useful mask, and don't you suppose he's a 
horrid monster to the other little six legged fellows who live in that 
pond ? 
His mask isn't the only odd thing about him ; his way of breath- 
ing is fully as curious. This is how he does it. From the end of 
his tail a tube passes into his body. He draws the water through 
this tube till it reaches the breathing organs, when the air is 
breathed and the water is thrown out again. Of course he keeps 
this up all the time — as you draw air into your lungs through your 
nose — and the water is sometimes thrown out with a jerk that 
sends him three or four inches along in the water. So when he 
wants to swim, he has only to breathe hard — you may say. 
As he grows older, he throws off his skin now and then, after 
the fashion of these curious little fellows, and when he throws it off 
for the last time, a sort of a hump makes its appearance on his 
back, (which hump contains the future wings,) and his head is 
larger and broader. 
But there comes a day when even this greedy little creature 
cannot eat. He can hardly breathe too, and for the first time in 
his life, he feels inclined to get into the air. He climbs up a weed 
till he gets out of water, and then swings back and forth, till — 
wonderful to tell — his skin splits open on the back, and he finds 
himself a full grown Dragon Fly. 
He isn't very gay at first however, for he is not used to breath- 
ing the air without any water, as he must now. So he rests awhile till 
he gets used to that, and then he begins to wiggle himself out of his 
old shell. Look at the figure on the right, and see him at it. When 
