398 



ON THK GENUS CORDULEPHYA, 



invisible. A swaying and almost pendulous-like motion back- 

 wards and forwards is kept up at the same time, so that the 

 movements of the insect are almost impossible to follow. The 

 only way to capture the female at such a time is to knock it, if 

 possible into the water, and draw it into the bank with tlie net. 



After ovipositing in this manner for a few minutes, visiting 

 perhaps from fifty to one hundred yards of the borders of the 

 stream, the female will suddenly rise with great swiftness, and 

 disappear as quickly as it came. 



A female, which I was fortunate enough to capture at Lily 

 Vale, in May, 1907, immediately exuded an enormous cluster of 

 eggs into a glass phial filled with water. There must have been 

 nearly a hundred in the one mass, and she continued to exude 

 large masses every few minutes. So that it seems that one of 

 these females must, at a moderate estimate, lay several thousand 

 eggs. These eggs are exceedingly interesting, for they are the 

 only Odonate eggs known to me which possess a sculpture or 

 surface-markings. Under a lens, they are seen to be irregularly 

 pitted all over with shallow oval depressions, giving the whole egg 

 a mottled appearance (Plate xi., fig,6). Their colour is orange- 

 brown; length O-."^, breadth 0-2 mm.; in shape a prolate spheroid. 

 They are fastened together in a glutinous mass; each egg carries 

 at one pole a small stem, and at the other a large gelatinous cap, 

 as shown in the plate. 



I kept some of these eggs in a Petri-dish for three weeks, during 

 which time they gradually darkened in colour, becoming a deep 

 brown. The eyes of the young larva could clearly be perceived, 

 and they were evidently within a few days of hatching, when I 

 lost them all from an attack of fungus. 



Partly grown larvae can be found from September to December, 

 but the end of January and beginning of February are the best 

 times to secure the full-fed nymph. At that time the only other 

 Odonate nymphs which have not emerged are those of Caliaeschna 

 conspersa, and the second brood of Diplacodes hcpmntodes, These 

 three inhabit different parts of the creek-bed; so that it seems 

 that the larva of Cordulephya has been forced to accommodate 

 itself to a very late period of emergence in order to escape the 



