246 Annals of the South African Museum. 



Tervueren sent a very important lot of specimens from Katanga, 

 which lot, though not strictly belonging to the fauna in question, has 

 been repeatedly quoted. 



In the writer's own collection South African species are chiefly 

 represented by material from the Delagoa Bay region, kindly forwarded 

 by the Rev. Henri A. Junod, of the Suisse Romande Mission. With 

 other lots of minor importance obtained from dealers, all these con- 

 tributions made a collection sufficient to characterise the fauna under 

 discussion. Differing in this respect from the paper of 1908, the 

 present one is entirely original ; supplementary notes have been 

 restricted to an appendix, and all descriptions and figures are made 

 from actual specimens in the various collections mentioned. 



But even now the work remains fragmentary. Nothing can be said 

 about the natural surroundings of the various species, their manner 

 of life and development, their place and value in the insect life of 

 their surroundings. It is the author's ambition that these lines may 

 awake sufficientlv the interest of some resident entomologist to have 



J 



these lacunae eventually filled by observation and record. Although 

 no nymphs or larvae of dragonflies are at hand from the country 

 under discussion, except that of Chlorolestes conspicua, see p. 445, it 

 was found desirable to give an idea of what these nymphs are ; the 

 examples were taken from the writer's own country, and they may serve 

 their purpose inasmuch as they are taken from groups represented in 

 South Africa either by identically the same or by very closely allied 

 genera. 



No general history of the Order Odouata is attempted, and it is 

 supposed that the more important facts of the external and internal 

 anatomy of insects are known to the student. Only such particular 

 structures are illustrated as are most characteristic of the Order and 

 important in its classification, namely the head, thoracic segments, 

 venation of wings and external genital organs of both sexes.* 



Thus the essential part of this paper is systematic, descriptive and 

 faunistic. The faunal limits have been drawn somewhat artificially 

 and also purposely ; they embrace the States of the South African 

 Union, but materials from the contiguous Portuguese Colony and 

 from Rhodesia are also included as far as they were found in the 

 collections under study. 



* Since the present paper was written, most fortunately a model text-book 

 has been given to the student of Odonata, where every aspect of the organisa- 

 tion, physiology, ecology, etc., of this order is discussed and illustrated by a 

 very large number of original figures : 'The Biology of Dragonflies,' by E. T. 

 Tillyard, Cambridge, 1917 (Cambridge Zoological Series). 



