1907 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 4y 



The greatest rarity was Nasiacschna pentacantha (Ram.) of wiiicli prob- 

 ably less than twenty specimens exist in collections, although it is dis- 

 tributed as far south as Texas and has been known a long time. Last year 

 Mr. Eraser obtained three specimens of its peculiar nymph near Bala, 

 Muskoka. This is a large sluggish dark-brown creature of apparently sim- 

 ilar habits to those of Ha genius but entirely different in appearance. This 

 summer I accidently found a nymph clinging to my p..ddle while passing 

 through a short channel which leads into one of the small lakes. Further 

 search for nymphs proved friiitless but a few days afterwards a few imagoes 

 were seen on the wing over a marsh on the border of the same lake, but 

 were too wary to be netted. About a week later, however, I chanced upon 

 a similar spot in another locality and managed to net a fine male, and this 

 was the only one taken as the season was apparently about over. 



Another somewhat rare species and a very odd and interesting little 

 one is N annothemis hella (Uhl.) Fig. 8. This is a very tiny dragon-fly, 

 though it belongs to the Libellulidae which are mostly large forms, where- 

 as all the rest of our very small species belong to the Agrionidae or Damsel- 

 flies. The male, which is at first perfectly black, very soon becomes covered 

 with a bluish dust, while the female is black with transverse bands of yel- 

 low. It was only found in two places but at one of these it was exceedingly 

 abundant. This was a small floating sphagnum bog occupying one corner 

 of an enclosed lake and having an area of scarcely 50 square yards. Here 

 they were flying about among the grass and bog plants close to the ground 

 and when perching had the peculiar habit of folding the wings downwards 

 on each side of the stalk which formed their support. This spot was a veri- 

 table little garden of orchids and other interesting plants. Over the sphag- 

 num moss the cranberry vines trailed in the greatest profusion, while pitcher- 

 plants, sundews of two kinds, the delicate rose-colored orchids, Pogonia 

 o2)hioglossoides and Limodomm tuberosum, and the tufts of white cotton- 

 grass were a most charming spectacle. It is among the roots- of the cran- 

 berry-vines and sphagnum that the nymphs- of N annothemis live, these 

 being well immersed in water. We could not find any, however, and two 

 exuviae were the only reward of a most careful search. This bog and others 

 of the same kind were the home of many other dragon-flies, but I shall make 

 mention of only two or three of the Damsel-flies or Agrionidae (Fig. 7), 

 a large group which I have as yet scarcely alluded to. Some 18 species were 

 taken in the vicinity of Go Home Bay, two of which were new to Canada. 

 These Agrionids are the small delicate forms that flit about in such large 

 numbers among the grass and sedge about the margins of lakes and streams. 

 One of the smallest of our species NehaUennia gracilis, Morse, and a new 

 addition to the Canadian fauna, we found in vast numbers in every sphag- 

 num bog. It is an exceedingly delicate little bronze-green insect, the under 

 parts yellowish-green and the end of the abdomen beautifully tipped with 

 pale blue, and very closely resembles the common species N.. irene, which, 

 however, has different haunts, preferring the shallow marshy inlets of the 

 bay to the bogs of the small lakes. 



The most familiar members of this group, however, are the beautiful 

 little azure-blue Enallagmas and the larger, dark metallic-green forms with 

 broad black or banded wings belonging to the genus Calopteryx. Enal- 

 lagma was abundantly represented by 8 species, but Calopteryx of which 

 C. maculata is familiar to every collector was exceedingly rare, it being a 

 frequenter of woodland streams of which there were very few in the dis- 

 trict. 



4 EN. 



