It has been supposed that the swallow is more rapid in its flight than almost any winged creature, but the dragonfly easily out wings it. An observer of insect life relates an account of a chase between a swallow and an immense dragonfly, in which the contest lasted a long time. The swallow evidently had hopes of catching the insect, but finally, after a long campaign, gave it up and let the fly escape, It has been claimed that the dragonfly was such a voracious devourer of mosquitoes that these small pests were thrown into a panic if a dragonfly approached them. It was declared that a fly confined in a room would speedily clear it of mosquitoes, but repeated experiments failed to substantiate this claim.

The dragonfly possesses the unique faculty among winged creatures, birds or insects, of flying backwards and forwards and sideways without turning its body. There are very few insects that the swallow, with its marvelous speed and dexterity, cannot catch, but the dragonfly is one them. The dragonfly without any apparent trouble, will keep a few feet ahead of a swallow for half an hour at a stretch, and no matter bow swiftly the swallow flies, the dragonfly is never just there when it makes its swoop. This is because the swallow has to turn its body, while the dragonfly only reverses its wings.

The investigations of Professor WeisMann have done more to solve the problem, "How death came into the world" than those of any other living man. It is generally assumed that death is associated with all forms of life, but this is not really the case. The lower forms of life, for example, may be said to have a perpetual existence, and not to be subject to death; for in unicellular reproduction life is practically endless. In the case of higher forms of life death is universal, and for a very natural reason. The aim of nature is the perpetuation of the species, not of the individual, and when creatures have, as in the case of certain insects, reproduced themselves once for all, they have no further need of existence.

Creatures that nurse their young, like mammals, and produce them slowly, have need of longer life, or the species would speedily be exterminated; but there is no reason why the individual, having performed its duty in relation to the species, should continue to exist, since its existence then becomes a superfluity. Between multi cellular and unicellular existence there is, therefore, the marked difference that, whereas the former dies when it has reproduced itself and so perpetuated its species, the latter goes on perpetually reproducing itself — one cell growing out of another without cessation. To Weismann we owe the knowledge of how it is that death intervenes when multi cellular existence develops from unicellular. The change is effected by the differentiation of the individual — or somatic — and the reproductive cells. The former have lost the power of multiplication and reproduction, and consequently died, while the latter have preserved it.

The most curious of all objects in New Zealand is that which the Maoris call "aweto." One is uncertain whether to call it an animal or a plant. In the first stages of its existence it is simply a caterpillar about three or four inches in length, and always found in connection with the rata tree, a kind of flowering myrtle, It appears that when it reaches full growth it buries itself two or three inches under ground, where, instead of undergoing the ordinary chrysalis process, it becomes gradually transformed into a plant, which exactly fills the body, and shoots up at the neck to a height of eight or ten inches. This plant resembles in appearance a diminutive bulrush; and the two, animal and plant, are always found inseparable. One is apt to relegate it to the domain of imagination, among dragons and mermaids; but then its existence and nature have been accepted by the late Frank Buckland. How it propagates its species is a mystery. One traveler, after describing its dual nature, calmly states — that it is the grub of the night butterfly. If so, then the grub must also become a butterfly, or what becomes of the species? One would be ready to suppose that the grub does really so, and that some fungus finds the cast-off slough congenial quarters for its growth. But as far as present observation goes the grub never becomes a butterfly, but is changed in every case into a plant.