Odonata or Dragonflies of Connecticut 



Philip Garman 



INTRODUCTION 



Dragonflies or Odonata form a branch of Insecta frequently 

 encountered and often considered in biological work. They have 

 been much studied by naturalists, perhaps as completely as any 

 other order of insects, and the present work does not purport to 

 establish anything especially new or original. Its main purpose 

 is to bring together as much information about dragonflies in 

 Connecticut as is possible (within reasonable limits) at the present 

 stage of our knowledge, and to present it in usable form; and 

 as every science is built upon knowledge acquired by previous 

 workers, so the present work has been founded upon the work of 

 such men as Baron de Selys, Ris, Tillyard, Needham, Calvert, 

 Walker, Williamson, and Howe. 



Dragonflies are among the most beautifully colored and deli- 

 cately constructed of all insects. They deserve consideration by the 

 amateur naturalist, as well as the professional. Moreover, they 

 are desirable tenants in mosquito-plagued districts and, if they 

 could only be reared in large numbers, would form a natural arm 

 of defense against a universal nuisance. Few insects combine such 

 a useful career with the natural beauty that we find in dragonflies, 

 and so it is hoped that the present small contribution will help 

 some one at least to know the dragonfly better and to appreciate 

 its many admirable qualities. 



PART I : BIOLOGY AND MORPHOLOGY, COLLECTION 

 AND ILLUSTRATION 



Habits and Life History 



All except a few dragonflies are aquatic when young. They 

 feed mostly upon mosquitoes, small flies and other insects, and 

 are beneficial. Cases have been reported where the nymphs fed 

 upon small fish, and still others in which trees were injured by 

 oviposition, but such instances are rare, and the amount of destruc- 

 tion occasioned is negligible. Some work (Wilson, 191 7-18), in 

 fact, indicates that the nymphs of Odonata probably never attack 

 fish in their native haunts. 



As far as known there is never more than one brood of dragon- 

 flies per season in Connecticut, while the larger Aeshnids probably 



