EGG LAYING 27 
Females of Enallagma and of Argia (especially of A. apicalis) are 
not infrequently found with only the abdomen of a male attached to 
the thorax. Has the remainder been snapped up by some bird or frog? 
Did the body break before the grasp of the female would let go? 
Some curious egg laying attitudes result when the superior ap- 
pendages of the male become very short. The senior author once 
(03, p. 243) reported this for Argia violacea as follows: 
This species, like the preceding, oviposits commonly in mats of algae lying 
at the edge of the water, or covering floating vegetation. On such mats I have 
frequently seen many females at work side by side, each with a male clasping 
her prothorax with his forceps, his body sticking up straight in the air, his legs 
and wings placidly folded. This curious position—standing, as it were, on the 
tip of the abdomen—is assumed, I think, on account of the greater ease of 
maintaining the position. The inferior appendages of the male are so much 
longer than the superiors that were the male to remain with his feet on the 
ground, when the female depresses her abdomen in ovipositing, the flexion of his 
body would be extreme, and perhaps uncomfortable. At any rate, he takes the 
elevated position very philosophically, folds his legs and waits till his spouse 
gets ready to let him down; and, when she wants to move from place to place, 
he uses his wings to help her. 
The females of Lestes and Archilestes habitually place their eggs in 
stems above the water, the former in herbaceous stems of iris and bur- 


Fig. 12. Archilestes californica. 16, Ovipositing. 17, In copulation. 18, 
scars from oviposition one year old. 19, Scars 2 years old. 20, Bark cut away 
showing eggs incambium. 2/, Egg. (from Kennedy). 
