1909.] 



229 



description of " Cordulia metaUica,'" bearing the date, " June 15th, 

 1S8G," and concluding with the sentence :— " Eare in England : it has 

 been found within the metro|)olitan district in June." 



The following note in Mr. F. Evans' " British LibelluUnce " (1845, 

 p. 24) brings the list of doubtful records to an end :— "This insect is 

 stated by Mr. Stephens to occur, though rarely, during June round 

 London, and is figured from a specimen in his cabinet." 



Evans' figure shows a dragon-fly with a crimson-lake abdomen, 

 and in " The Annals and Magazine of Natural History," vol. xviii (p. 

 222, 1846), De Selys says "that it more resembles the (snea, ? ," 

 and adds, "1 have not seen any specimen whose capture in England 

 was certain. It is very doubtful if it is found there." 



Lastly, Hageu,in"A Synopsis of British Dragon-flies" (Entomo- 

 logists' Annual, p. 47, 1857), says :— " No specimen is known with 

 certainty to have been caught in England. Harris' figure is very 

 doubtful." 



A search for Stephens' specimen at the Natural History Museum 

 proved fruitless. 



As wnll be seen below, McLachhxn refers to Stephens' specimen 

 and says that there had probably been a mistake in identification. 



Dr. Buchanan White was the first Entomologist to give Soma- 

 tochlora meiallica a true footing on the British list, and in the Ento- 

 mologist's Monthly Magazine of July, 1870 (vol. vii, p. 38), appeared 

 a note by Mr. McLachlan, entitled, " Occurrence of Cordulia metnl- 

 lica Van der Lind. : a dragon-fly new to Britain." In it he describes 

 how Dr. White, in 1869, sent him some dragon-flies from Strathglass, 

 in Inverness-shire ; thinking that they were So^natochlara arctica, 

 Zett.,and after sending away all but one to a friend on the continent, 

 he discovered the error in identification. 



In the August number of the same periodical (1870, vol. vii, p. 

 53) there is a note on " Neuroptera in Strathglass " by Dr. White 

 himself :— " Dragon-flies were scarce ; the commonest being Cordulia 

 metallicn (see p. 38), more often seen than caught, but not rare about 

 some lochs on the south side of the glen." 



In 1880, '' A few specimens were taken after much hard work " 

 by Mr. J. J. F. X. King (Ent. Mo. Mag., vol. xix, p. 12). 



McLachlan, writing again in 1884 (Ent. Mo. Mag., vol. xx, p. 

 258), mentions Stephens' record, and says : — " I know not what has 

 become of the specimen said to have been in his cabinet, and from 



