226 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



that, if I held the net motionless in front of a flying male he 

 would promptly alight on the edge of it. 



But specimens may be captured directly with little trouble at 

 morning or evening, or on cloudy days, when they are less active. 

 Sometimes they assemble in large numbers on the pendant 

 boughs of a willow bush beside a stream at evening, forming 

 with their crimson streaked wings and bodies of black and 

 bronze against the willow background, so charming a picture 

 that the collector will hesitate to disturb it. 



The nymphs cling to plants in the rapids; occasionally they live 

 on bulrush stems that fringe the wave-washed shore of a lake. 

 Transformation takes place just above the edge of the water, 

 and, with us, in the month of August. Our common species I 

 have bred several times in widely separated localities. It does 

 not occur at Saranac Inn, It has been several times taken at the 

 head of Cayuga lake at Ithaca. This species (H. a m e r i c a n a) 

 may be separated from H. tricolor as follows: 



KEY TO SPECIES 



a Tibiae with tlie exterior side yellow a m e r i c a n a 



na Tibiae entirely black tricolor 



Hetaerina americana Fabricius 



Plate 12 



1798 Agrion americana Fabricius, Ent. Syst. Suppl. p.287 

 1S39 Lestes basalis Say, Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila. Jour. 8:35 

 1839 Calopteryx americana Burmeister, Handb. Ent. 2:826 

 1854 Hetaerina americana Selys, Monogi*. Calopteryginae, p. 131, 



pl.12, fig.3. 

 1861 Hetaerina americana Hagen, Synopsis Neur. N. Am. p. 60 

 1863 Hetaerina americana Walsh, Ent. Soc. Phila. Proc. 2:211, 



267 

 1875 Hetaerina americana Hagen, Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist. Proc. 



18:23 

 1893 Hetaerina americana Calvert, Am. Ent. Soc. Trans. 20:228 

 1895-97 Hetaerina americana Calvert, N. Y. Ent. Soc. Jour. 



3:42 and 5:92 (listed from Keeseville, Ithaca and Albany county) 

 1895 Hetaerina americana Kellicott, Cincinnati Soc. Nat. Hist. 



Jour, (habits) 



1899 Hetaerina americana Kellicott. Odon. Ohio, p.4 



1900 Hetaerina americana Williamson, Dragon Files Ind. p.254 



1901 Hetaerina americana Howard, Insect Book, pl.40, fig.ll 

 1901 Hetaerina americana Calvert. Biol. Centr. Am. vol. Neur. 



p.26-29, pl.2. fig.1-17 (a most complete account of imago) 



