Their legs are not arranged for walking. All six of them are directed
forwards as though they were reaching out after something. And so they
are--reaching out after insects.

Dragon fly catches his prey while he is flying, and he grasps the
insects with his feet.

He snatches one, and then what?

Does he sit down somewhere and eat it?

Not he, he is far too hungry for that; he continues his swift flight,
and as he flies he eats.

As soon as he has finished one fly or gnat, zip! he snatches another.

He has an insatiable appetite, consuming hundreds of insects in the
course of a day. Nor does he confine his attention to flies and gnats
and mosquitoes and such small fry. He catches what he can. A large
dragon fly will even gorge himself on one of the large-sized
butterflies, and one has been seen calmly chewing away at an enormous
wasp!

No, indeed, Mabel, the dragon fly does not eat the wings of the
butterfly, it eats only the soft body.

Probably nothing eats a butterfly, wings and all. Birds and insects
sometimes catch butterflies, and you often see the bright wings lying on
the ground. The wings of insects are not worth eating, and are almost