BY II. J. TILLYARD. 371 



than usual keenness and pleasure that I set about finding an 

 answer to tbein. 



Curiously enough, ni}' first experience with a Diphlebia was 

 the discovery of a new species, D. euijhoeo'ides, at Kuranda in 

 North Queensland, in December, 1904. It was iKjt until a year 

 afterwards, when I visited the Mount Kosciusko district, N.S. W., 

 that I came across the more widely distributed D. lestoides. On 

 the Snowy River it was by no means uncommon, and was often 

 a conspicuously beautiful object, as it rested, with expanded 

 wings and brilliant blue body, on some rock in midstream, or on 

 a twig of some overhanging bush. I was, however, quite unable 

 to find out much about its habits. The males v/ere rather shy, 

 and difficult to capture; while the females were very seldom 

 seen. Occasionally a pair were seen flying together over the 

 water, but they were always attacked sooner or later by extra 

 males, who generally succeeded in separating them or driving 

 them off the river into the bush. Once or twice I came upon a 

 pair at rest on a branch of a tree or bush, some distance from the 

 water. We may reasonably conclude that the fertilisation of the 

 ova is, therefore, generally accomplished away from the water, in 

 some secluded spot of this kind. The next point to be observed 

 was whether the male returned with the female to the river, and 

 accompanied her during oviposition. Here I was completely at 

 fault, for I never once saw a female ovipositing, although I was 

 continually watching for them. 



In pairing, the male uses his forcipate superior appendages to 

 clasp the female round the prothorax, exactly as in the genus 

 Lestes; the short inferior appendages press upon the occiput of 

 the female. 



I next saw this insect on the Goulburu River at Alexandra, 

 Victoria, in December, 1906, but it was so extremely rare that I 

 was unable to make any observations on it. In October, 1907, 

 I was delighted to find it much nearer home, on the Woronora 

 River, about twenty miles south of Sydney. Here I tried 

 dredging and sweeping the water-weed with a net, but I failed to 

 get any larvae that could possibly be referred to this species. ISTor 

 was I able to discover any females in the act of ovipositing. 



