This offensive insect lives in _stagnant_ waters, continually watching for prey. Its feelers resemble the claws of a scorpion; the eyes are _hard and prominent_, the shoulders _broad and flat_. It wastes twenty times as much as its appetite requires; one can destroy thirty or forty of the libellula kind, each as large as itself. It is nevertheless greatly overrun with a small kind of lice, which probably repay the injuries it inflicts elsewhere. At certain seasons it flies to _distant waters_ in search of food; but it remains where it was produced until fully grown, when it sallies forth in search of a companion of the other sex, and soon begets an useless generation.* * Martyn's Diet. Nat. Hist. 2 vols, Folio, 1785. He that maketh the wound bleed inwards-- Gives Liberty the last, the mortal shock; Slips the slave's collar on, and snaps the lock. What is his Character?-- A man of amiable Manners-- mild and civil. Character of the Murderer of the Man. I never judge from Manners, for I once had my pocket picked by the civilist gentleman I ever met with; and one of the mildest persons I ever saw was Ali Pacha.--Lord Byron. {104} [Illustration: 112] DIRKPATRICK. (a Petrified Putrefaction.--a Bloodstone.} Moral. I recommend it to all that read this History, that when they find their lives come up, in any degree, to a similitude of cases, they will inquire and ask themselves, is not this the time to repent?--De Foe's Col. Jack, 1723, p. 399 {105} [Illustration: 113] THE BLOODHOUND. Ladies and Gentlemen, This is the most terrible animal in the Collection. Its character is that of decided _enmity to man_; it hunts down those who endeavor to regain their _Liberty_, and is called the _Ban_ Dog. When it scents a human victim it follows his track with cruel perseverance, flies upon him with dreadful ferocity, and, unless dragged off, tears and rends the form until every noble feature of humanity is destroyed. It has an exquisite smell for blood. The species vary little throughout the world : there is scarcely any difference between the trans-atlantic _Spanish_ blood-hound and the _Irish_ wolf-dog, whose ferocity has been much diminished by the animal being frequently _crossed_. It is still kept on some of the old _royal grounds_. {106} [Illustration: 114] THE DOCTOR.--(a Dejection) In these days the grand "_primum mobile_" of England is CANT--Cant political, Cant religious, Cant moral, but always CANT--a thing of words, without the smallest influence upon actions; the English being no wiser, no better, and much poorer, and more divided among themselves, as well as far less moral, than they were before the prevalence of this _Verbal Decorum._--Lord Byron on Mr. Bowles