ge
as they grow older.

Yes, May, you can keep the dragon fly larvae until they change into
dragon flies.

You must supply them with fresh water and with enough to eat.

And you must put a net over the bowl or aquarium in which you keep them,
otherwise as soon as they are able they will fly away.

How can they fly without wings?

Oh, but they are going to have wings. You know they are young dragon
flies in spite of their strange appearance.

Be sure and feed them enough, or else they will eat each other, and that
would be a pity; and be sure there are some water plants for them to
hide under and crawl upon.

You can give them a little fresh fish or a tiny bit of very fresh meat,
though they like best the living things they find in the bottom of the
pond.

[Illustration]

When the dragon fly larva first hatches it is very small and its legs
are rather long and spidery, but it eats and eats and eats,--my, how it
eats!

And it grows and grows, and one day it finds its skin too tight.

A tight skin must be rather uncomfortable.

But the larva does not care much for its skin.

It merely splits it open down the back and pulls itself out.

Perhaps you think it must be yet more uncomfortable to be without a
skin.

But it is not without a skin. It is covered by a new and soft one that
soon hardens, and that is larger than the old one.

It wriggles out of its old skin as though it were an old coat, and
leaves it clinging to the weeds in the pond.

Sometime you may find these cast-off dragon fly overcoats.

After it has shed its skin the dragon fly continues to grow. It keeps on
growing until it has outgrown its new skin.

Then what do you think it does?

Yes, Charlie, that is right, it sheds this skin too.

[Illustration]

When it sheds its skin we say it moults.

It moults several times, and at last little short wings appear. At first
it has no wings at all, you know.

Amy wonders how the larva breathes under water.

Ah, Master Ned, you are laughing too soon. You think insects do not have
to breathe, but you are very much mistaken, sir.

Insects do have to breathe.

They would die if they could get no air to breathe.

Some of the dragon fly larvae have an odd arrangement for breathing under
water. They have a sort of syringe in the end of the body, and there are
breathing pores or gills in the syringe.

The water goes in and out of this syringe, and the larva breathes as the
fish does, by