It could not hurt very much, and its bite is not poisonous, still I
shall handle it carefully.
Some call the dragon fly a darning needle, and say it sews up people's
ears when they lie on the grass. This is not true. It does not sew up
anything. It has nothing to sew with.
[Illustration]
Why should it want to sew up people's ears, anyway?
It does nothing unpleasant but bite fingers, and it never goes out of
its way to do that.
If we let it alone, it always lets us alone.
It is our good friend because it catches mosquitoes. For this reason it
is sometimes called mosquito hawk.
We should never kill a dragon fly.
Sometimes it is called a spindle, I suppose because it is long and
slender like a spindle.
Down South the colored people believe the dragon fly brings dead snakes
to life, and they call it snake doctor.
In some places it is called snake feeder.
But it has nothing to do with snakes, dead or alive.
The French have given it a pretty name, _demoiselle_, or damsel fly, and
that is quite deserved, for the dragon fly is a graceful little
creature, as pretty as pretty can be.
[Illustration]
See, sticking out of the front of its head are two little feelers, or
antennæ, as we must call them.
They are very short, but it does not need long ones.
Insects smell with their feelers, you know, but our dragon flies see so
well they do not need to smell very well, I suppose.
See how it can turn its head around. That is because it has a little
short neck between its head and its body.
Its eyes, its mouth, and its antennæ belong to its head.
Of course our demoiselle can fly well; one need only look at those wings
to know that.
To fly well is quite as necessary to one of its habits as to see well.
What would be the use of seeing an insect if it could not fly fast
enough to catch it?
We all like your pretty wings, little dragon fly; they look like glass
and they shine so in the sun.
How fast the wings can move! See that dragon fly skimming over the pond;
its wings make a whizzing sound as it darts about.
[Illustration]
Why does it zigzag so?
Why doesn't it fly in a straight line?
Yes, Mollie, you are right, it goes zigzagging along after insects.
It sees one it wants off at one side--whizz! around it turns after it.
Shouldn't you like to fly like that, children?
And yet we would not be willing to exchange our arms and hands for
wings.
We could not whittle a stick nor write a letter if we had only wings.
In fact we could not do most of the things we now do.