NO. 2192. DRAG0NFLIE8, CALIFORNIA AND NEVADA—KENNEDY. 559 



on one of the ponds on the Napa Insane Asylum grounds, and about 

 June 15 caught several on Chico River east of the city of Chico. 



Both Coyote Creek and Chico River are warm sluggish streams 

 with mud banks and much mud bottom. On Coyote Creek on May 

 10 the species was at the height of its season. On May 27 it was 

 much less abundant, and on July 4 it had entirely disappeared. On 

 Chico River, June 14 and 15, only an occasional sohrinus was seen 

 but the exuviae were very abundant, which would indicate that at 

 that time their season was practically over. From the preceding 

 data it is evident that sohrinus is an early spring species, appearing 

 in April and gone by July, and that it inhabits the warmer constant 

 streams of medium size and to a lesser extent ponds. Perhaps it is 

 also limited to the more mud-bottomed streams, as I did not find it 

 in the Feather, Yula, or American Rivers, which are sandy bottomed. 

 Neither does it occur on clear spring-fed mountain streams, for one 

 such flowed through the asylum grounds, and another (Stephen's 

 Creek) flows not far from San Jose, in neither of which did sohrinus 

 occur. 



On Coyote Creek where I observed its habits more fully, it does 

 not appear about the water in numbers until about 11m the forenoon. 

 Earher than this it can be found on the sunny patches of bare ground 

 back a few yards from the creek bank. It is active about the water 

 during the heat of the day but leaves about 4 in the afternoon. The 

 males are four or five times as abundant as the females, and usually 

 stay low over the water, seldom rising higher than four or five feet 

 above its surface. They usually rest on the bare sandy spots but 

 hght also on logs, brush and willows. The females oviposit by tap- 

 ping the surface of the water with the abdomen at irregular intervals 

 as they fly close over its surface. It is at such times that the males 

 swoop on them and take them away in copulatory flights, which end 

 in a long resting period in copulation on some tree or bush. 



Many of the specimens which I have fit Selys's description closely, 

 but the species varies in a remarkable way, and I believe on further 

 study and wider collection will be found to include Selys's species 

 confratemus. If such is found true, the name confraternus will 

 supersede that of sohrinus, as the former precedes the latter in Selys's 

 writings. The variations of the species will be dealt with more fully 

 in the discussion of the next and closely related mountain species 

 from Lake Donner.^ 



The following are color descriptions of sohrinus: 



Male. — Labium black in the middle; entire face and frons pale 

 greenish yellow, except posterior edge of horizontal surface of frons, 

 which is black as is the entire vertex; occiput yellow; eyes gray, with 

 the posterior surface with three yeUow spots. (See fig. 279.) 



1 See p. 550 of this paper concerning so6nn«.s from Seattle, Washington, collected by R. Osburn and 

 called confraternus. 



