930 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, fol. XXVI. 



III. Only 1 row of cells between 5 and ba. 



Base of both wings black with a bluish, metallic 

 reflection, in the forewing as far as the tri- 

 gone, in the hind nearly as far as the node . . R. triangularis. 



62- Rhyothemis variegata variegata, Hagen. 



Libellula varieyata, Linne. 

 Libeliula marcia, Drury. 

 Rhi/othemis marcia, Hagen. 

 Libeliula murcia, Fabr. 

 liJiyothemis murcia, Braiier. 

 Libeliula indica, Fabr. 

 Libeliula histrio, Fabr. 

 Libeliula celestina, Oliv. 



Male. Expanse 7o mm. Length 37 mm. 



Eyes reddish brown above, olivaceous at the sides and beneath ; occiput 

 black ; vesicle and forehead metallic green ; face and labrum golden yellow 

 labium blackish brown. 



Prothorax black. 



Thorax metallic green or a coppery green on the dorsum. Very pilose. 



Abdomen parallel-sided, dorso-ventrally dilated for the first four segments, 

 metallic, coppery green, pruinose at the sides and beneath. Legs black. 



Wings long and rather narrow at the apices, suflused entirely with 

 yellow, marked very variably with black as follows : — the apices of all 

 wings a blackish brown ; irregular black spots, very variable in size, some- 

 times very large, sometimes almost or some at least entirely obsolescent, 

 at the trigone, node and at the middles of 5 and 5a, and 7 and 7a. In 

 addition to these, in the hindwing, two irregular, transverse, black fascise 

 which lie in a diffuse, framing of deeper yellow than the rest of the wing. 



Female : head, prothorax and abdomen coloured the same as in the 

 male. Con8ideral)ly shorter than the male. Expanse 67 mm. Length 32 mm. 



Wings much shorter and broader than in the male and marked very 

 differently. The distal half of the forewing and the apex of the hind from 

 the proximal end of stigma, hyaline and with no tinting of yellow, the 

 remainder of wings suffused with yellow and marked broadly with black, the 

 latter colour preponderating. Tihe tornus narrowly, two rounded indenta- 

 tions at the terminal ends of the 7th and 8th nervures and a variably 

 sized, circular spot in the middle of the outer part of the black fascia, 

 yellow. Also a more or less quadrate spot immediately distal to the node 

 and an irregular, transverse band posterior to the trigone in the hindwing. 

 In the forewnig, the termen narrowly and a subcostal ray yellow. 



Hab. Throughout Continental India in the moister areas. Ceylon, 

 Indo-Malay, Burma, Thibet, Nepal, Bombay, Madras, Bangalore, Calcutta, 

 Bhamo, Mandalay, Annam. 



Contrary to the general rule, females of this and the next and probably 

 of all species of the genus are much in excess of the males. In Bangalore 

 and Madras where 1 have seen the insect swarming in such numbers that 

 five or six could be taken with a single stroke of the net, not more than 

 ] per cent, would be males and half of the number taken would be variegata 

 and the other half phi/liis. I captured a hundred specimens one day under 

 the impression that they were all variegata but when examining them at 

 leisure I was surprised to find that I had only two males of that species, 

 the remainder being females of that insect and phyllis, the latter closely 

 resembling the males of variegata. They are to be sought for in marshy areas 



