Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1898-07-18
Easter he knelt at the altar rail with
Fred and Dorothy.
THE MARVELLOUS DRAGON FLY,
Extraordinary Is the Machinery That
Governs Its Flight.

EXTRAORDINARY Is the Machinery That
Governs Its Flight.
There is no winged creature, unless
1t may be the humming bird, writes a
naturalist, that has the extraordinary
machinery governing its flight that
the dragon fly possesses. Its speed IS
marvellous, and yet its wings never
seem to move. A dragon fly may be
going forward with the velocity of the
wind, and yet can stop instantly in
the air, and Immediately start back
ward just as rapidly as it had been
going forward. Or it can fly sidewise
with the same facility that it can fly
forward or backward, as any one may
see hundred times day if he will
watch one of these insects winging its
erratic course afterpr 1t can see
victim behind it, in front of it. and
on both sides of it, all at the same
time, and doesn't have to waste time in
turning to get at all four, and it will
have all four in its marvellous nav
while watch is ticking twice.
Wonderful as the arrangement of
the dragon fy's wings are its optical
powers are still more wonderful. The
insect has five eyes. Two of them are
enormous, brilliant protuberances on
each side of the top of its head, the
two most striking features of this big
fly, and the ones that give it that fierce
appearance which causes it to be SO
much dreaded by foolish men, women,
and children. Then right in the
front of its head, on its forehead, so to
speak, it has three ordinary eyes, all
in row. Each one of the two big,
blazing eyes is made up OF no fewer
than $4,000 highly polished facets,
each with high-lens power, which not
only accounts for the intense brilliancy
OF the eyes, but gives to them micro
scopic and all-seeing power beyond
human ken. Any prey that escapes
the eye of dragon fly is welcome to
its freedom from pursuit and capture.
There is another PECULIARLY in the
makeup of the dragon fly that has
been source of much regret to
naturalists from the time naturalists
first appeared. In life the long, seq
mented body of the insect is marked
with most brilliant and beautiful bands
of colors. The instant death ensues
these colors fade and disappear, leav-
ing only an ugly grayish trunk. Sci
ence has failed to find way to pre-
vent this fading of the dragon hy's
hues, consequently Misrepresentation
OF dragon-fy colors in collections are
artificial. They are reproduced by
carefully dissecting the insect and
painting the hues on the inside of the
body, the transparent skin or shell
permitting the artificial coloring to
show through. Alive the dragon fly,
in spite of its terrific front, is one of
the most royalty beautiful of all in
sects. Dead, it is the ugliest.
Any one who has wa.ched dragon
fly fitting above the surface of small,
reedy ponds or near the shores of
large ones, late in the summer or
early in the fall, has noticed its fire..
quent dipping of the extremity of its
long body lightly in the water as it
skins along. The dragon fly that
does that is always the female, and
every time she dips her body in the
water she deposits an egg. The spe-
cific gravity of the egg is such that it
sinks to the bottom among the weeds,
and in due time matches out the for,
midable-looking creature whose de-
velopment into the perfect dragon fly
1 have described. 1t takes three
years for an egg to become the perfect
hy.