The dragon-fly, gracefully called "la demoiselle," is one of the finest insects in the world and certainly the most beautiful of those which fly in our climate; no soft butterfly colour is a match for the moving shimmer of its supple abdomen, and the bright head-colours as of steely-blue helmet. Description? It is difficult to find two alike; one has tawny body and dove-grey abdomen, spotted with yellow, and black feet, transparent wings with brown borders or nerve-veinings, or these in black and white; another has a yellow head, brown eyes, brown corselet veined in green, an abdomen touched with green and yellow, irised wings; another called "la Vierge" is gilded green, or blue with green shimmer, and spotless wings; another "la Jouvencelle" has wings thin to invisibility, is clothed in all shades, metallic blue, reddish-brown green, iris violet, tawny chrysanthemum, whatever her fundamental colour she encircles her elegant barrel with rings of black velvet. Naturalists divide these insects into libellules, æshnes, agrions; Fabricius disputes with Linnæus; peasants and children (for grown-ups despise nature) call them "demoiselles," "vierges" and "jouvencelles."[1] Some fly very high, in the trees, others along the streams and over pond edges; others over ferns, reeds, broom. I have passed days in the sun watching them, waiting to see their courtships; I have seen them, and know that Réaumur has not deceived us. It was on the surface of a pond among the border flowers, a morning of July, a flaming morning. The "Vierge," corselet of blue green, almost invisible wings, fluttered in great numbers, slowly, as if seriously; the hour of parade had arrived. And everywhere couples formed, rings of azure hung from the grass blades, trembled on leaves of the water-lentil, everywhere green arrows and blue arrows played at flight, and wing-brushing, at joining. The big eyes and strong head of the libellule give an air of gravity to the brilliancy of this spectacle.