66 DRAGONFLIES OF NORTH AMERICA 
loop is 4 celled and a little broader in the female than in the male. The 
male abdominal appendages are short and blunt. 
This genus, properly delimited, includes only the single widely dis- 
tributed North American species, described below. The nearest allies 
are in Japan and India. 
The nymph is of most extraordinary form, the abdomen being flat 
and nearly circular, with a row of blunt dorsal hooks down the middle. 
The enlarged third joint of the antenna also is flat, and their are two 
pairs of tubercles upon the head. It is a sprawler amid the bottom silt 
rather than a burrower; and it is a stiff ungainly slow-moving awkward 
creature. 
7. Hagenius brevistylus Selys 
The Black Dragon 
Selys ’54, p. 82: Mtk. Cat. p. 82: Calv. ’17, p. 205: Howe ’18, p. 28: Wmsn. ’20, 
p. 81; Howe ’23, p. 130: Garm. ’27, p. 12. 
Length 80 mm. Expanse 110 mm. Me. to Md., to Wis., Tex. and B. C. 
This is the black giant of the order in North America. Face cross-lined with 
black on all the sutures. Occiput black. Thoracic stripes of the first two pairs 
overspread most of the front of the thorax, leaving only a pair of linear-oval pale 
stripes entirely surrounded by confluence of stripes 1 and 2 at both ends. Stripe 3 
is also very broad, confluent with 2 at both ends and just above the middle, 
leaving intervening pale streaks above and below the middle confluence. Stripes 
4 and 5 broad and continuous and well defined. Legs black. Wings hyaline, 
costal edge yellowish, stigma brown. The middorsal pale stripe of the abdomen 
is abbreviated on segments 6 and 7 and wanting farther back, 8, 9 and 10 and 
appendages being wholly black. (Figs. 18 and 19 on pages 36 and 37) 
This is a wide ranging species with a long season of flight. It flies 
from June to September. It frequents clear woodland streams and is 
not at all rare. It flies swiftly from one resting-place to another. 
When at rest on a rail or on the ground it is approachable by careful 
stalking, and is not at all impossible to capture with a net. The female 
drops her eggs during flight, unattended by the male. She strikes the 
water surface at points wide apart, liberating 10 to 20 eggs each de- 
scent. Thus they are well distributed. The senior author saw Hagenius 
capture a big Gomphus in flight, carry it up to a high bough on a tree, 
strip off its wings and send them fluttering down, as it began its repast. 
Davis (’13, p. 19) records having seen Hagenius on Jefferson Mountain 
near New Foundland, N. J., chasing butterflies, though he saw none 
of the latter captured. Williamson (’20, p. 81) records the capture of 
a female Hagenius in the center of the business part of the city of 
Bluffton, Ind. 
