454 



INDIAN DRAGONFLIES. 



BY 



Capt. F. C. Fraser, I.M.S. 



(With 13 Plates.) 



Hambiir in his account of the world's Neuroptera published in 

 184-2, described some forty odd species as coming from India. 

 Since that date, the number of species and genera described has 

 largely" grown and the figure now stands at about 160. The Baron 

 Edm. de Selys Longchamps published a series of monographs on 

 the world's Dragonflies between the years 1854-1886 and Kirbj^'s 

 Synonymic Catalogue of Neuroptera — Odonata was published in 

 1890. A long series of papers and works appeared subsequently' 

 in as nearly as many different journals, transactions and proceed- 

 ings of zoological and entomological societies. Finally from 1910 

 there appeared a series of fascicles, published by the sons of the 

 late Baron de Selys, which included the World's Odonata under 

 the title of: — "Collections Zoologiques du Baron Edm. de Sel3-s 

 Longchamps", which work still remains incomplete. A glance at 

 the references, therein given, of any one species will serve to show 

 how enormously scattered is the literature on the subject. 



It is mainly due to this inconvenience that the collecting and 

 study of Indian Dragonflies has been so neglected in comparison 

 to the thorough way in which the Lepidoptera and to a less extent, 

 the Coleoptera have been worked at. There are other drawbacks 

 in addition to the foregoing which face the collector, especially if 

 he is collecting in one of the wet areas. Dragonflies are such 

 voracious feeders that there is always a large store of whoU}^ or 

 partly digested food material in their bodies, decomposition of 

 which, unless it be carefully dissected out within an hour or so after 

 death, completely destroys the majority of specimens. The biilliant 

 colours found in many species during life, have a disappointing way 

 of fading soon after death and so, much of the beauty and interest 

 in the insect is lost. Careful cleansing out of the food material will 

 however largely prevent this drawback. Lastly there is an intensel}" 

 destructive little fly which has an insidious way of getting into the 

 boxes where fresh specimens are drying and depositing their eggs 

 in the thoraces. There is a large amount of muscular tissue in this 

 part of the dragonflj^'s anatom)^ which it is impossible to dissect out 

 and on this the larvJB of the fly feeds and one sees with chagrin, the 

 specimen decomposing and falling to pieces under ones eyes. 



Faced with obstacles such as the foregoing, it is not surprising 

 that the Indian Odonata have suffered from neglect at the hands 

 of entomologists in this country and until the scattered literature 



