IV. Pygmy Friends That Fly and Hop and Creep
Lions and tigers are such terrible beasts that you are very glad they live in circus menageries, park zoos and far-away jungles. As for dragons, very likely they never lived at all, except in story books, along with mermaids and jobberwocks. But insects could tell you quite a different story. In their world, up in the air, down on the ground, in earth dens and even in the water, are beasts of prey that devour them. The very names of some of them are enough to frighten their victims into spasms. There are dragon-flies, ant-lions, tiger-beetles and spiders. But some of them have quite innocent names, such as frog, toad and lady-bird.
Wouldn't mosquitoes and flies and gnats be indignant, if they knew that we think the dragon fly beautiful? But it is as beautiful as any butterfly, and in its darting, skimming flight it is as swift and graceful as a swallow. It really is the swallow of the insect world. It catches and eats its food on the wing, and it eats nothing but flying creatures smaller than itself. It hunts its small game over ponds and ditches, swamps and marshy shores, just where insects breed by millions. Very likely you call these pretty friends of ours snake feeders and devil's darning needles, but they are too busy feeding themselves to feed snakes, and they can't sting or bite you or sew up your ears, at all. They are as harmless as humming birds.
There are several varieties of dragon flies, darners and damsel flies, but they are all insect feeders. They have very long, slender, stiff bodies of dazzling metal colors, in steel blue, purple, green bronze, copper and silver white- Their four long, narrow, silver-gauze wings are beautifully veined, and are often spotted with white or brown or amber. Their big, jewel eyes stand out from their heads and glitter like automobile lamps. And they have regular snapping-turtle mouths.
On very hot midsummer days there often seems to be nothing on the wing but these glitter-winged dragons of the air, and their swarms of little victims. Some of them skurry to shelter in the water weeds if a cloud blows up, but others love to frolic with the wind, and will even go out over white-capped waves on the sea shore. If food is scarce on the water, some of them will go up Into meadows and orchards and get a lunch of codlin moths and weevils.
