THE DAMSEL FLY
(Agrion maculatum, Beauvois)
Most insects’ legs are made to walk with, but those of the dragon-fly are not. They are bunched together so near the head that when the creature alights it can do little more than cling to what it lights upon. Instead, the legs, with their spines, form a perfect basket, open towards the front, and thus become the organs with which flies are caught.
This damsel fly, as it is called, is smaller and more delicate than the dragon-fly with quite a different head. It inhabits shrubby woodland and is not often seen. Some of its tropical relatives are creatures of extraordinary fragility and delicacy.
Its wings, which move in perfect unison, although distinct, are operated by such ingenious mechanical devices within the body as to have long ago suggested a flying machine, and it is strange how like a dragon-fly Professor Langley’s aerodrome, the first of them all, does look, although of course the aerodrome’s wings were rigid.
One realizes what enormous eyes these dragon-flies have when one begins to compare them with the size of the head.
THE LACE-WINGED FLY AND THE APHIS LION