Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1914-07-02
An Aerial Dragon.

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they are very useful as well. To the ma
ture student they furnish material for
endless study. They are the swallows
of the insect world, and no one can help
admiring their graceful, airy flight and the
rainbow colors that play upon their wings.
"Snake doctors" the boys used to call
them, and they firmly believed that they
brought dead snakes 10 life. They were
"deviPs darning- needles, too, and chill
dren feared to fall asleep on some mossY
bank lest they come and sew up their
ears. Dragon-flies are perfectly HARM
less, however, and are, indeed, the best
OF friends TO human beings, tor the NUM-
Der OF gnats and mosquitoes these indus
trious fellows deyour is beyond compu-
tation. Tonoxious flies and other winged
insects the dragon-fly must seem a veri-
table dragon OF the air.
Ii they are dragons in their mature life
above water, they are ogres OF the dark
depths of sluggish ponds where they
spend their immature existence. The
immature dragon-fly gives little promise
of the beautiful insect it afterward be-
comes. Could your eye penetrate the
muddy water some warm day in early
May, you might see, creeping awkwardly
along the bottom, among the decaying
vegetation, strange, big-headed, thick
bodied, dirty gray, wingless creature
varying from half an inch to two inches
in length. Should you watch one OF the
repulsive looking insects for a few min
utes, you would see if suddenly dart for
ward by squirting water from The hinder
tip of the body, unfold vicious pair of
mandibles like miniature ice-tongs, seize
some unwary aquatic insect, and devour
it. Or you might see one, half-buried in
the ooze and slime, watch with large,
basilisk eyes until some sporting water
bug came near. Then the mandibleS
would untold, grasp the bug, and draw
it into a rapacious mouth.
When you see dragon-fly skimming
about over lake or pond, it is probably
feeding, and the manner in which il takes
its food is one OF the most interesting
things in nature. Naturally, every one
supposes that the dragon-fly catches its
prey in its mouth. "Such, however, is
not the case," writes Mr.. c. S. Moody,
land discovered that fact purely by ac-
cident.
al was sitting in boat one day near
the shore of a lake. had been fly-cast-
ing for trout without great success. FL
nally grew weary, and sat idly swing
ing my fly few inches above the water
and watching the play OF insect life. A
dragon-fly came skimming along, saw
the artificial fly, mistook il for parlicu-
larly toothsome morsel, wheeled quick
as thought and seized it. Instead of
grasping it in his beak, the insect formed
a basket with his legs, neatly picked the
fly up in this basket, bent his head, and
grasped il with his mandibles. The fell
fow was evidently surprised when his
jaws closed over the steel hook, for he
dropped the supposed insect with what !
imagined to be most diSgusted look.
81 experimental for some time, and
induced several dragon-flies TO capture
the trout fly, and all of them formed the
leg basket and seized it in that. You
will notice, if you examine dragon-fly
closely, that the legs are much too weak
and small for purposes Of locomotion;
indeed, the dragon-fly in adult life never
uses its legs for walking, but they are
admirably adapted for exactly the pur-
pose nature intended, namely, basket
in which to capture prey.
at is wonderful how quickly the drag
on-fly sees and captures the tiniest midge,
but its eyes are constructed for that pur-
pose, for they are in reality composed
of as many as thousand facets Then,
too, the eye is unusually large the Wis
ual apparatus takes up more than two
thirds OF the head. Moreover. the in
sect can rotate its head about lS0 degrees,
and that gives very extended range of
vision.
"lf you care to know something of the
voracious appetite OF these insects, cap
ture one some day without injuring it,
hold il by the wings. and feed it house
flies. One gentlman fed over forty flies
to large dragon-fly in two hours. The
food of the dragon-fly consists largely Of
mosquitoes, and now that we know that
these pests are responsible for several
serious diseases, the dragon-fly may be
classed as one of Our best friends"