56 DRAGONFLIES OF NORTH AMERICA 
In this valley a mile in length, closed in by its wooded sides and cut by the 
small stream which wanders through it, Tachopteryx seemed to be at home. 
Oftenest we found them resting on the rail and board fences which separated 
the woodland from the open fields. Sometimes they were on logs or trees or 
clinging to a twig; always in the sunshine and in an open place, where sudden 
dashes in any direction after insect prey were possible. Rarely one was seen over 
the fields, possibly passing from one side of the valley to the other with swift, 
strong flight. At rest, they seem careless of danger. Possibly, as undisputed 
insect lords of the valley, they have grown to fear nothing. One will hang on a 
fence post, its abdomen pressed against the wood. The insect net is brought 
within an inch of it, but it never moves. To attempt to brush it from the post 
into the net may crush it. You touch the abdomen with the rim of the net. 
The dragon-fly moves impatiently and holds its abdomen away from the" post. 
Then the net is moved up along the post till the abdomen hangs within the ring. 
A quick stroke and the thing is done. 
Once a male was seen within two feet of the ground, clinging to the trunk 
of a small sycamore tree; the writer was within half a dozen feet of the tree. 
Suddenly the dragon-fly dashed from the tree, seized a crane fly (numbers of 
these were rising and falling within a yards distance) then returned to the tree, 
alighting a little higher than its former resting place. This was repeated several 
times, till the dragon-fly was resting ten or twelve feet from the ground. Each 
trip was made with great swiftness and vigor. 
The nymph of T.. thoreyi was described by E. B. Williamson (’01), 
from whose plate our figure is taken. It has a length of 38 mm. It will 
be readily recognized and distinguished from all other nymphs in 
our fauna by the breadth of the segments of the 7-jointed antennae. 
The shape of the labium and of its median cleft, and by the angularity 
of the abdominal segments. 
The nymph was found by Mr. D. A. Atkinson in a boggy spot in a 
small tributary to the Allegheny River. He saw the nymph clinging 
to the trunk of a tree, about two feet above the mud from which it 
had recently crawled. The mud which covered it was not yet dry. 
This was about 10 a.m. Placed in a box the nymph climbed up one 
side to a height of about eighteen inches, and the imago emerged at 
5 p.M. In the boggy spot where the nymph was collected, at that time 
the only surface water was that which was retained in small depressions, 
such as the tracks of cattle, among the roots of the sedges and grasses. 
On July 15, 1900, Mr. J. L. Graf observed another female ovipositing 
in this same swale. She alighted among the dense grasses and placed 
the eggs among the roots or in wet decaying vegetable matter above 
the surface of the water. She would raise and lower her abdomen 
eight or ten times in one place, then fly to another spot. The time 
was between 10 and 11 a.m. On June 28, 1900, at Ohio Pyle, Mr. Graf 
discovered still a third female of this species ovipositing. A mere thread 
