256 



STUDIES IN THE LIFE-HISTORIES OF AUSTRALIAN 

 ODONATA. 



i. The Life-History of petalura gig ante a Leach. 



By R. J. TiLLYARD, M.A., F.E.S. 



(Plate xxiv.) 



The student of Nature who lives in a country like Australia,. 

 where new forms are still to be found everywhere, will, it is to 

 be hoped, refuse to be carried away by the mere desire of de- 

 scribing and naming them, and treating them as mere specimens 

 to be put away labelled in a cabinet. A chapter in the book to 

 which he aspires to contribute should not be all, as it were, index. 

 The most important part of the work to be done is not the mere 

 " manufacturing " of new species, nor the " proposing " of new 

 genera. Important as these may be for the furtherance of the 

 systematic study of groups, yet of far greater value, both to the 

 systematist and the nature-lover, is the study of the individual 

 life of new forms. The era of mere species-making is passing 

 away, and the demand is more and more for light to be thrown 

 on the strange habits of unknown Nature. 



I feel that I owe an apolo,i(y to many who passed over my first 

 attempt at a " life-histor}' " without comment, for that somewhat 

 crude, and, in one respect at least, inaccurate account of the life- 

 history of Lestes leda Selys, contributed by me to these Proceedings 

 in 1906. Before entering on further work of the same sort, I 

 am bound to correct the error, first pointed out to me by Mr, 

 \V. Gurney, which I made concerning the oviposition of that 

 species. Mr. Gurney has seen the male and female descend into 

 the water and place their ova in the tissues of water-weeds; and 

 I have, since that time, repeated!}^ seen the oviposition carried on 

 in a similar manner, but with only the tip of the female abdomeR^ 



