46 THE REPORT OF THE No. 19 



and finally tlie moving water of the Go Home River. Then at many points 

 along the irregular shores of the mainland and the larger islands, shallow 

 inlets with sandy or gravelly bottoms and a luxuriant aquatic and shore 

 vegetation support a widely different fauna from that of the more exposed 

 parts, while finally there are numerous small inland lakes, which again 

 present conditions quite distinct from any of those already mentioned. 

 Their shores are sometimes rocky and bare in places but are for the most 

 part swampy; floating sphagnum bogs being a special characteristic of the 

 margins of ihese lakes. These are often gems of natural beauty and are 

 of great interest to both zoologists and botanists on account of the many 

 rare and interesting forms, mostly of a boreal character, which are met 

 with here. 



The first collecting trip after my arrival at the Station was made on 

 June 16th to one of the larger of these enclosed lakes. The black flies were 

 so tormenting that collecting, especially in a sheltered spot like this, was 

 by no means a pleasure and even in the more exposed islands their numbers 

 were suflBcient to cause us considerable annoyance. But few dragon-flies 

 were as yet abroad and these had for the most part not yet attained their 

 mature coloration. Libelhda exusta, Say., was the most abundant and con- 

 tinued to be so throughout a large part of the season. It is not common 

 with us at Toronto but here, particularly during July, was extraordinarly 

 numerous everywhere in the woods, but especially about these lakes and 

 in the shallow swampy inlets. The female is inconspicuously colored but 

 the males have their bodies covered in part by a bluish-white bloom which 

 renders them very conspicuous when chasing each other over the water or 

 resting on the rocks and logs. We found the nymphs of next year's brood 

 in large numbers in the red-rotten vegetation at the bottoms of these lakes 

 and the exuviae where commonly found adhering to the sedge and grass near 

 +he water's edge. 



Another Dragon-fly of very different structure and appearance but fre- 

 quenting the same sort of waters, is Gomphus spicatus, Selys. This was 

 also met with on our first trip in considerable numbers and continued to 

 emerge for some days afterwards. It belongs to a group whose nymphs are 

 burrowers and in accordance with such habits are more or less flat with legs 

 adapted for digging. They live in the silt at the bottom of lakes, ponds 

 and streams, the tip of the elongated abdomen being held above the sur- 

 face for breathing purposes. The imagoes, like most species of the genus, 

 are dark brown with yellow bands and spots, rather small, widely separated 

 eyes and a more or less club-shaped abdomen in the male. They also have 

 the characteristic Gomphine flight, which though swift is generally very 

 short, the insect constantly alighting, usually upon flat ground, seldom 

 perching upon twigs after the manner of Libellulines. G. spicatus became 

 very abundant at Go Home but like most of its congeners it is comparatively 

 short-lived and by the middle of July has almost disappeared. 



A third species of which only freshly emerged examples were taken on 

 this date was Leucorhinia frigida, Hag., a small Libelluline of distinctly 

 northern distribution which is quite absent from the fauna of southern 

 Ontario. It became one of the most abundant Dragon-flies at Go Home Bay 

 and was especially characteristic of the small lakes, while our common 

 southern species L. intacta, Hag., was but rarely met with. Its nymphs 

 had never been found before, but we obtained them in large numbers and 

 reared them without difficulty. 



Four other species were also taken on this date, two common little 

 Damsel-flies or Agrionidae, the little blue Enallagma Hageni (Walsh) 



