280 DRAGONFLIES OF NORTH AMERICA 
This is a blackish damselfly of the southwest. The front of the thorax is 
black; the sides are paler, obscure, with a broad brownish middle band. The legs 
are yellowish with blackish tarsi. Femora and tibiae with black lines upon the 
sides. Appendages blackish with sides yellow inferiorly. Appendages black. 
272. Lestes forficula Rambur 
Ramb. ’42, p. 246: Mtk. Cat. p. 38. 
Length 40 mm. Expanse 39 mm. Tex. 
This is a blackish southern species. Face pale inferiorly. Front of thorax 
bluish each side of the bronzy green stripe that is margined with black. Sides 
blackish becoming pruinose with age. Legs yellowish with black lines on femora 
and tibiae. Abdomen brassy black, middle segments ringed with paler at their 
joinings; end segments becoming pruinose. Appendages black. 
Subfamily CoENAGRIONINAE 
These are the smallest of the damselflies. They are mostly clear 
winged forms, and not very long legged. Vein M3 rises nearer the nodus 
than the arculus. The stigma is short, surmounting hardly more than 
a single cell. There are no intercalary sectors in the spaces either side 
of vein M3. The colors run to black and blue and red. 
The nymphs are slender, mostly greenish forms that clamber among 
submerged vegetation. The middle lobe of the labium is entire. The 
lateral lobes have not more than two end hooks, oftenest but one with 
a serrated margin above it. The gills are non-segmented in form, 
generally lanceolate, pointed, with raptorial setae, but with none 
springing from the movable hook. The genera and species are numerous 
and closely allied. They may be separated as follows: 





RSs > 

KEY TO THE GENERA* 
Adults 
1 Vein Cw only three cells long; Cu, rudimentary. Neoneura, p. 283 
Veins Cu; and Cusiwellsdeveloped)...)% (2 se 332 fe eee rere 2: 
* Omits the South American genus Oxyagrion, one species of which was once re- 
ported from the coast of California. (Mtk. Cat. p. 53) 
