28 DRAGONFLIES OF NORTH AMERICA 
reed (Needham, Amer. Nat. 34: 375, 1900), the latter in the woody 
stems of willow. Kennedy (15, p. 267 has described the process in 
Archilestes as follows: 
The male holds the female during oviposition. The female draws the tip of 
her abdomen up until her body forms a loop with the ovipositor between her 
legs, when she makes in the willow branch a downward thrust. On examination 
of twigs it was found that no egg is laid in this first downward thrust. Next 
she partly withdraws the ovipositor, making a lateral thrust on the right side. 
This for the first egg. A third thrust is made in the same side by partially with- 
drawing the ovipositor first and aiming it forward of the second. A fourth thrust 
is made forward of the third for the third egg. Then she twists the tip of the 
abdomen around, making three thrusts on the left side, the lower thrust first, 
the upper thrust last. In each of the six lateral thrusts an egg has been laid with 
the small dark end at the point of insertion. (See figs. 20 and 21.) After such a 
series of eggs has been laid the female withdraws her ovipositor and the pair 
back down the branch about one-fourth of an inch and repeat the process. One 
pair was watched for an hour, at the end of which time the female took longer 
rests between thrusts and finally ceased ovipositing. 
The eggs probably pass the winter in the live cambium tissue of the twigs, 
for in a twig I kept alive until January 1, 1914, the eggs were still unhatched. 
Both dragonfly and damselfly eggs, when laid above the surface of 
the water, are subject to parasitism. Minute hymenopterous egg 
parasites find them an easy prey, whether inserted into the stems of 
iris, as in Lestes, or dropped upon the surface of floating mats of algae 
as inSympetrum. Indeed the eggs of Ischnura when placed in stems 
beneath the water’s surface are commonly sought out and parasitized 
by minute wasps that enter the water as adults and swim through it 
with their wings. 
