[Illustration: _Larva of the Dragon-fly._]
[Illustration: _The same partly closed._]
We may now see an instance yet more strange of a carnivorous larva. We must wend our way to the riverside in the months of May or June. There, after a diligent search at the bottom, in some moderately shallow portion of the stream shall we find a larva, the study of which might well occupy us for many pages. Yet it is the larva of an insect well known to every angler and brook-side wanderer--the dragon-fly. This larva is provided with one of the most remarkable contrivances for seizing its prey and conveying it to its mouth, of any being in the zoological kingdom. By the assistance of the engraving, we may perhaps be able to render this apparatus, which is somewhat complicated, intelligible to the reader. Looking at the larva's head, we are reminded somewhat of that of a horse who has got blinders over his eyes, and a nose-bag over his nose, and partly up his cheeks. Now suppose the two blinders thrown back on each side, then conceive that the lower part of the face which we have supposed covered with a nose-bag were to be uncovered, we should then see the following curious contrivance. The lower lip of this larva is lengthened downwards into a sort of _arm_, if we may so speak; at what we may call the _elbow_, is a joint connecting the upper and lower portions of it, and the place of the hand is occupied by two cross plates, with a claw at the end of each. Suppose an unhappy insect, or even a tadpole, swims carelessly by the larva, immediately the two sides of the mask, or blinders, as we have called them, fly open; the arm is uncovered, the forearm let down, and by means of the plates, which we have compared to the hand, the victim is caught, and bending the arm back, is presented to the mouth of the larva. There is much similarity in this organ with the wonderful apparatus of the elephant called its trunk; but of the two, the trunk of this insect is the most beautiful piece of animal mechanism. When the prey has been devoured, the arm folds up, covers the mouth and part of the face of the insect, and the blinders, or two side pieces of the mask, fall in, and lock together in a toothed manner, as the engraving in the last page shows.