or three would hurtle out for a brief
expedition over the blossoming meadow. Often one would alight for a
moment on a leaf or twig in the sun, and lie there gleaming, its two
pairs of wings flatly outspread in a way that showed every delicate
interlacing of the nerves. Then it would rise again into the air with
a bold, vehement spring; and when ever it began its flight, or
whenever it abruptly changed the direction of its flight, its wings
would make a dry, sharp, rustling sound.

The business that so occupied these winged and flashing gems, these
darting iridescences, was in truth the universal business of hunting.
But there were few indeed among all the kindred of earth, air, and
water whose hunting was so savage and so ravenous as that of these
slender and spiritlike beings. With appetites insatiable, ferocity
implacable, strength and courage prodigious for their stature, to call
them the little wolves of the air is perhaps to wrong the ravening
gray pack whose howlings strike terror down the corridors of the
winter forest. Mosquitoes and gnats they hunted every moment,
devouring them in such countless numbers as to merit the gratitude of
every creature that calls the mosquito its foe. But every summer fly,
also, was acceptable prey to these indomitable hunters, every
velvet-bodied moth, every painted butterfly. And even the envenomed
wasp, whose weapon no insect can withstand, was not safe. If the
dragon-fly could catch her engrossed in some small slaughter of her
own, and, pouncing upon her from above, grip the back of her armed
abdomen in his great grinding jaws, her sting could do nothing but
dart out vainly like a dark, licking flame; and she would prove as
good a meal as the most unresisting bluebottle or horse-fly.

Down to the pool, through the luxurious shadows of the birches, came a
man, and stretched himself against a leaning trunk by the waterside.
At his approach, all the business of life and death and mating in his
immediate neighbourhood came to a halt, and most of the winged
kindred, except the mosquitoes, drew away from him. The mosquitoes, to
whom he had become, so to speak, in a measure acclimatized, attacked
him with less enthusiasm than they would have displayed in the case of
a stranger, and failed to cause him serious annoyance. He fixed
himself in a position that was thoroughly comfortable, and then lay
quite still.

The man's face was under the shadow of the birch-tree, but his body
lay