200 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS | July, '22 



Indiana Somatochloras Again (Odonata, Libellulidae). 



By E. B. WILLIAMSON, Bluffton, Indiana. 



Eighty-five years ago, in 1837, Calvin C. Deam, aged six 

 years, came to Wells County, Indiana, with his parents. Here 

 they found only a few white people in a few small cleared 

 areas in the practically continuous forest, two small prairies, 

 the largest about seventy or eighty acres, being the only natural 

 openings in the woodland which covered the land to the water's 

 edge along the Wabash River. The forest was heavily under- 

 brushed with prickley ash, spicewood, pawpaw and dogwood. 

 The small streams of later years were then practically long 

 swamps with short connecting streams. Here the timber was 

 not so heavy, being principally ash, and the underbrush was 

 not so thick, but the water was all shaded and log-dammed 

 at frequent intervals. Creek beds as I knew them thirty years 

 ago as a boy did not appear till the fallen logs were dragged 

 out and the released waters made the channels. The Wabash 

 was also log-jammed and full of deep holes. Its breadth 

 permitted the sun to reach the water, which was deep and 

 clear even in low stages when it almost ceased to flow. The 

 boulders, now numerously exposed, were then all covered with 

 but one exception. Even in the highest stages the water was 

 only slightly roiled, never getting a muddy yellow as in these 

 later days, though it frequently got out of its banks into the 

 surrounding woodland. The prairie of seventy or eighty acres 

 got dry enough in the summers to cut with scythes, but not 

 dry enough for wagons, and the hay was pulled out with grape 

 vines and horses. There were two Indian camps, one of thirty 

 to forty Indians just below the mouth of Johns Creek (named 

 for John Bennett) and one of twenty-five to thirty Indians 

 just above the mouth of Bills Creek (named for William 

 McDowell). 



Calvin Deam has lived to see the day when the original 

 forest has gone from Wells County as certainly and com- 

 pletely as has the Indian. He has seen the ruination of the 

 Wabash and the complete destruction of many of its tributaries. 

 The modern dredge has laid its unsightly gashes in every 



