HABITS 23 
large species that become very abundant. Sometime the air of the 
bee yard is filled with them, darting about capturing worker bees as 
they slowly wing their way, heavily laden with nectar, back to the 
hive. They crunch and dismember the bees body as they fly, dropping 
detached legs and wings until the ground is sprinkled with bee frag- 
ments. Sometimes, when they fly low in the late afternoon, the 
exasperated bee man lashes them to the earth with willow boughs.* 
The chief enemies of adult dragonflies are birds and frogs. Both 
destroy many at the time of transformation. The destruction of teneral 
imagoes that may occur at this time is well shown by the observations 
of Mary Lyon (’15, p. 57) at Ithaca: 
.... The unusual number of birds along the banks attracted my attention as 
I came into the meadow. When I walked over to look I saw a great many 
Gomphine exuviae, and closer examination showed many glistening wings among 
them. Along the banks of the stream and pond as far as six feet away from the 
water the ground was strewn with them. In a typical spot I counted twenty- 
seven cast skins in a space only two feet square. Not a Gomphus was seen on 
the wing nor were any observed for several days afterward. The sandpipers, 
bronzed grackles, red-winged blackbirds, sparrows and probably other birds 
had enjoyed a sumptuous feast as this was evidently the one morning of the 
season which hundreds of Gomphines had chosen for their emergence. 
This is the work of the early bird. Frogs do not remove the wings, 
but fold them up, wings, legs and body together, and swallow them 
whole. V. R. Haber, in a study of the food of the Carolina tree-frog 
(Hyla cinerea) found that the blue pirate (Pachydiplax longipennis) 
had been eaten by six out of one hundred frogs examined, and that 
one frog had eaten two.f Ovipositing females must often risk capture 
by frogs, fishes and watersnakes, when they hover over the water 
or descend into it for the purpose of laying their eggs. 
The birds that most habitually eat Odonata and that capture them 
in flight are the swifts and swallows. They eat mainly the smaller 
damselflies. They sweep the tops of the marshes and the edges of the 
ponds, and gather them in their wide gapes along with mayflies and 
midges. The bird that is most often seen deliberately selecting in- 
dividual dragonflies for capture is the kingbird. Perched upon a stake 
by the waterside, he watches the dragonflies disporting themselves 
in chase or courtship, and pounces down upon one when he sees a 
* Mr. H. D. Grinslade of Wewahitchka, Fla., has furnished specimens 
enabling us to certainly identify the ‘‘bee-butcher.” It is Coryphaeschna ingens. 
One big male sent us had his mouth filled with bee fragments, a worker wing 
protruding from his jaws. The case is not yet proven against any other species. 
t Journal Comparative Psychology, 6: 206, 1926. 
