1911.] 17 



of ovii- own Sitaris muralis. According to M. Escalfra, tho female of .1. nym- 

 phoides does not leave tlie gallery of the bee. It would be interesting to com- 

 pare Hornia minutipennis Avith the Moroccan A. nymphoidcs, but vmfortunately 

 this is not possible. I saw a co-type of Leonia in Paris many years ago, in the 

 collection of A. Salle. Hornia is known to me from description alone. — 

 G. C. Champion, Horsell, Woking : December, 1910. 



Telephorus thoraci(ms, Oliv.,var. suturalis, Schilsky, at Gosport and Woking. — 

 Mr. C. J. C. Pool recently sent me a variety of T. thoracicns from Gosport for 

 determination. It is tho form described by Kiesenwetter (Nat. Ins. Deutschl. 

 iv, p. 502) with a clear splash at the sutiu-e, which broadens at the base and 

 does not quite reach the apex, subsequently named var. sitUiralis by Schilsky 

 (Deutsche ent. Zeitschr., 1890, p. 178), the latter having the yellow coloration 

 a little more extended and more sharply defined. The var. discotestaceus of Pic 

 is the same form, but his var. thercsise has the elytra vmicolorous reddish-yellow 

 or dark at the apex only. In Mr. Pool's specimens, and in one I have taken at 

 Woking, the yellow coloration is mainly confined to a transverse patch at the 

 base of each elytron. This form is, I believe, not rare in Britain, though perhaps 

 not previously recorded in oiu* literature. — Id. 



Dragon-flies breeding in rain-ivater collected at the leaf-bases of Bromeliads. — 

 Prof. P. P. Calvert, of Philadelphia, has just published an account of his 

 Zoological researches in Costa Eica [" Old Penn," Weekly Eeview of the 

 University of Pennsylvania, ix, no. 6, pp. 165 — 170, Nov. 12th, 1910], and his 

 description of the habits of certain Odonata is so interesting that we give an 

 extract from it, so far as concerns the genus Mecistogaster, the illustration 

 being, of course, omitted. 



" It is among the larvae of the dragon-flies that our chief novelties are to be 

 found. There is a group of these insects, limited to tropical America, remark- 

 able for the length and slenderness of body and wings of the adults, the 

 abdomen being as much as fovu' and a half inches long and the spread of the 

 wing six or seven inches in some species. Nothing was known of the early 

 stages of this group, but Mr. 0. W. Barrett had suggested, in 1900, that 

 possibly the larvae lived in the water which is retained between the leaf-bases 

 of bromeliads, members of the pineapple family. Acting on this suggestion 

 and learning from a letter from Mr. F. Knab, of the United States National 

 Museum, that he had recently raised dragon-fly larvse from such a source in 

 Mexico, much time was spent, in examining these plants. On the moistei 

 Atlantic slope of Costa Eica, bromeliads are quite abundant, growing on the 

 branches and trunks of trees in the hedgerows around Cartago, in the cool 

 woods of moiui tains like Irazu, 11,000 feet above the sea, and in the warm 

 tropical forests of much lower elevation. Sometimes they are situated close 

 to the groivnd, often they are attached to an un).)ranched trunk 30 or 40 feet 

 from the soil, or may be lodged among the branches at a still greater height. 

 Their leaves, often two or more feet long, taper gradually to near the tip, are 

 toothed or spined on their straight edges, bright green or beautiful pink or red, 



B 



