26 DRAGONFLIES OF NORTH AMERICA 
The Eponina skimmer (Celithemis eponina) is attended by the male 
throughout the egg laying. He retains his hold on the top of her head 
for a long time. He seems to direct the course and to assist in the 
flight as they wing up and down in long sweeping sinuous curves 
between distant places of contact with the water. 
The prettiest performance of all is that of the raggedy skimmer, 
Tramea onusta. After copulation the pair, in a wild flight, come 
dashing downward toward the surface of the pond. When about a 
foot above the surface the male releases his hold on the head of the 
female and moves forward a little at that level, marking time, while 
the female descends and touches the water with the tip of her abdomen. 
As she rises, without a sign of effort he seizes her again. Her head 
seems to slip between his clas- 
eyez = pers with wonderful precision. 
—— Without the slightest delay they 
are coupled together and off on 
another bound.* And this sepa- 
ration and _ recouplement is 
repeated at every descent. 
The females of the more 
primitive forms that possess 
an ovipositor (Cordulegaster, 
etc.) lay their eggs unattended 
by the male. Others, like the 
~ common green darner (Anax 
“i: junius) may or may not have a 
male for a pilot, according to 
circumstances. But among the 
LEO TORE MPR SN ee Sage OS specialized damselflies 
. ° U a OrTrsalrs. . . 
Nymph with ibis coat of albaet (Coenagrioninae) the female 
B, Cast skin. C. Female ovipositing. Seems to have been granted by 
(After Kennedy). nature a proprietary right to 
her spouse. When he proposes 
and she accepts him, and he, rashly or otherwise, clasps her by 
the thorax placing the tips of his superior appendages in the paired 
cup-like depressions between her pro- and synthorax, then she draws 
these parts together, gripping his appendages as in a vise. Then she 
has him, for life, or at least during satisfactory behavior. He cannot 
get away. 

* The limitations of space do not permit us to indicate in our diagram the 
high leaps that are made by the pair between tappings of the water surface. 
