He has an insatiable appetite, consuming hundreds of insects in the course of a day. Nor does he confine his attention to flies and gnats and mosquitoes and such small fry. He catches what he can. A large dragon fly will even gorge himself on one of the large-sized butterflies, and one has been seen calmly chewing away at an enormous wasp!

No, indeed, Mabel, the dragon fly does not eat the wings of the butterfly, it eats only the soft body.

Probably nothing eats a butterfly, wings and all. Birds and insects sometimes catch butterflies, and you often see the bright wings lying on the ground. The wings of insects are not worth eating, and are almost always cast aside by the creatures that eat the insects.

Besides catching insects with their legs, the dragon flies cling fast to things with them, but when they wish to move they do not walk, they fly.

Yes, indeed, Frank, you are right; their legs are jointed.

That is so they can move them easily and fold them up when they want to.

They would find it as hard to get along without joints to their legs as we should.

Wouldn't we be stiff if we had no joints!

See, the legs and wings are fastened to the middle part of the body, the thorax, we call it.

All insects have the legs and wings attached to the thorax.