22 DRAGONFLIES OF NORTH AMERICA 
of the role which they play in the transmission of disease, are not only 
annoying but even positively dangerous. Dr. Robert H. Lamborn 
thought their destruction of mosquitoes of such value that he offered 
prizes for the best essays on the artificial rearing of dragonflies as a 
means of exterminating the mosquito. The testimony of the prize 
essays, published in 1890 shows the suggestion to be impractical, 
although there is no doubt that dragonflies do destroy myriads of 
the pest. Kellogg (’05)f testifies that 
in Samoa and in Hawaii, where the dragonflies are conspicuous by their abun- 
dance and variety, they do much to keep in check the quickly breeding mosqui- 
toes. 

ya ; 9 
The Danneré=——— 24-000) St t=ce ccs - 
Oitmaa 
weer : S ree 
oe . 
’ 
The raggedy 2 
skimmer 
s i. . >, 
The ten spot —— --A2-------------------- 2929-22 aces EEE ITI ---- 22 \y 
The amber wing—---& et ee 
The Argias—____ 2" 

Fig. 9. Diagram illustrating flight levels over a pond. 
Apparently, dragonflies are in places used for food of man, for 
Carveth Wells says (Six Years in the Malay Jungle, p. 17): 
Once I saw a little Malay boy running about with a long stick, chasing a 
big dragonfly! I thought he was crazy; but he managed to touch the fly with the 
end of the stick and catch it. The stick was covered with sticky stuff like fly 
paper. He pulled the wings off the big fly and popped it into a box with a lot 
more; that night he went home and fried them in oil, and served them for his 
dinner smothered with onions and shrimps. 
The most direct and obvious injury wrought by dragonflies is that 
of killing honey bees. In the southeastern United States they cause 
very serious losses. They have made queen rearing impractical, 
because unprofitable, in Florida. The damage is due to one or two 
t Numbers thus placed in parenthesis indicate works that are listed chrono- 
logically under authors’ names in the Bibliography beginning on page 366. 
