THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 145 



The female deposits lier eggs while hovering over the water, descend- 

 ing to dip the tip of her abdomen repeatedly. She is generally interrupted 

 in her peaceful occupation and soon driven away by the too importunate 

 males. The females remain for the most part in the woods and come 

 from the woods to the ponds to oviposit, but hardly has one shown her- 

 self over open water before several males are in pursuit and she quickly 

 disappears again. The difference in the haunts of the sexes is so marked 

 that males would seem largely in excess to one who collected only beside 

 the water, females so to one who collected only in the woods. 



The nymphs are quite active. When in the water they rest with the 

 long abdominal appendages widely spread apart ; but withdrawn from the 

 water, these are brought together so that the abdomen seems to end in a 

 long point. When picked up they have a habit of curving the abdomen 

 as if to strike with the terminal spines. Their transformation takes place 

 in the early part of the forenoon, and imagoes leave their empty old skins 

 generally clinging to stumps and logs fallen in the water. 



The full-grown nymph measures 23 mm. ; abdomen, 16 ; hind femur, 5.5 ; width 

 of abdomen, 6 ; of head, 4.5. Body slender, not depressed ; abdomen smooth ; thorax 

 and legs clothed with tawny hairs. 



Colour fulvous, yellowish beneath and on sutures; eyes black ; sides of thorax in- 

 distinctly marked with black ; apical third of abdomen reddish, with two broad black 

 lateral stripes. 



Head wider than long ; eyes not remarkably prominent ; vertex roundly elevated. 

 Rear of head straight or very slightly concave. 



Labium moderate ; mentum without raptorial seta; ; median lobe prominent ; its 

 border crenulate, with single spinules between the crenulations. Lateral lobes ample ; 

 movable hook nearly straight to the short, al^ruptly incurved tip ; raptorial seta; 6 each 

 side ; teeth of opposed margins crenate, each ending in a sharp, incurved hook, and 

 armed with a stout spinule. 



Meso-thoracic stigmata separated by less than the width of one of them. Wing- 

 cases reaching well upon the 6th abdominal segment. 



Abdomen lance-oval, with sharp lateral margins. Long, straight, sharp, lateral 

 spines on 8 and 9. Dorsal hooks on 4 to 8, the first erect spine like the others directed 

 backwards, tlie hindermost with their dorsal margin forming a straight line to the base 

 of the segment ; 9th abdominal segment hardly longer on ventral than on dorsal side ; 

 loth segment a little shorter than 9th, conical. Abdominal appendages very long (13 

 mm,) and sharp, longer than segments 9 f 10 ; superior and inferior appendages equal ; 

 laterals one fourth as long. 



LibeUula depianata, Rambur, is but a smaller southern variety of 

 Libelltila exusfa, Say, as was jjointed out by Mr. P. P. Calvert in 1893 

 (Trans. Amer. Ent. Soc, XX., 258). But in recent repeated dismember- 

 ment of the genus LibeUula no part of it has been left to bear that name 



