DRAGON-FLIES. 19 



The perfect insect appears about February. This 

 dragon-fly also occurs in Eastern Australia. 



Sub-family ZYGOPTE RIDES :— Dragon-flies having the wings of 

 the two pairs equal in size, or the hinder a little the smaller. 



Tribe AGKIONINA. 



" Eyes small and distant ; wings equal, attenuated at their bases. 



Genus LESTES, Leach (1817). 



" Wings horizontal in repose. Nodal sector arising three to five cells 

 behind the nodus ; the sub-nodal not angulated or hardly undulated ; the 

 ultra-nodal sector interposed and the short sector angular under the nodus ; 

 two supplementary sectors interposed between the sub-nodal and the median 

 sectors. Pterostigma three or four times as long as broad, surmounting 

 2 to 4 cellules. Two ante-nodals in all the wings. Quadrilateral with the 

 internal side a third or a fourth of the interior. Anal appendages of the 

 female cylindrical, subulate, shorter than the last segment. 



" Distribution. — Cosmopolitan. 



Second Section. 



"External inferior angle of the quadrilateral much pointed. Colour 

 blackish-bronze, mixed with blue or clear red. Inferior appendages of the 

 male short. 



"Distribution. — Asia, Australasia, Oceania"' (Hutton). 



LESTES COLENSONIS. 



Agrion colensonis, White, Zool. "Erebus" and 

 "Terror," Insects, pi. 6, fig. 3. Lestes colensonis, Selys r 

 Synopsis Agrionines, p. 44 (1862). 



(Plate III., fig. 4 <?, 5 ? .) 



This pretty dragon-fly is very common, and generally 

 distributed throughout the country. 



The expansion of the wings is 2J inches, and the length of the body 

 1^ inches. 



The general colour of the male is dark purplish-black, with brilliant 

 blue markings. The front of the labium, the pronotum, two broad stripes 

 on the mesonotum, the articulations of the wings and the articulations of 

 the abdomen are brilliant blue. The legs are black above and yellowish- 

 brown beneath. The superior appendages of the male are like pincers 

 toothed inside and having a tubercle at the base inside, which is the 

 commencement of a dilatation, terminated towards the middle by a very 

 sharp tooth ; the end inclined downwards and curved slightly outwards. 

 The inferior appendages are not half the length of the superior ; they are 

 brown, thick, approximated, and slightly attenuated. 



In the female the head and pronotum are dull slaty black, the central 

 portions of the mesonotum brilliant green-edged, first with a narrow band of 

 white and then broadly with black. The abdomen is bright green at the 



