TELEBASIS 305 
thousands of the fully colored individuals were copulating and ovi- 
positing in the shallow water among the sedges and the Sagittarias. A 
week later their numbers began to reduce and by July 7 but an occa- 
sional specimen could be found. During the whole period their distri- 
bution was limited to an area of 200 yards along this little rivulet, so 
narrow that one could easily leap across it anywhere, and but a few 
inches deep. Such a localization is not what would be expected of a 
species distributed from the Atlantic to the west.” 
67. TrLesasis Selys 
These are dainty little red damselflies of the southwest. The legs are 
weak and slender. The abdomen is moderately slender. The wings are 
hyaline with rather long quadrangle and rather short stigma that sur- 
mounts hardly one entire cell. 
296. Telebasis salva Hagen 
The Flapper 
Hag. ’61, p. 85: Mtk. Cat. p. 63: Ndm. ’23, p. 130: Smn. ’27, p. 16. 
Syn: boucardi Selys 
Length 27 mm. Expanse 30 mm. Calif. 
This is a dainty little damselfly with brown striped thorax and red abdomen. 
The face is yellowish or reddish up to the ocelli. Top of head bronzy black. 
Front of thorax with a broad bronzy black middle stripe divided by the yellow 
carina, bifurcated above and notched on the outer margin at three fourths its 
length. Sides of thorax pale with a short oblique stripe behind the humeral 
suture and a spot on the suture. Legs yellowish with short black spines. Stigma 
yellowish. Abdomen red, paler beneath; a little suffused with brownish toward 
the tip. Appendages red with blackish tips. 
It flies very low over the water—so low that one cannot get a net 
under it and avoid the water. It haunts the low vegetation, especially 
the spike-rush patches. The male accompanies the female while she 
deposits her eggs. They fly together in a straight line, tandem, and 
settle together on floating alga-mats or sticks. While the female is 
plying her ovipositor beneath the surface the male is held aloft solely 
by the clasp of his caudal appendages about her prothorax. 
The nymph (Ndm. ’09, p. 176) in life is very easily recognized, 
among the other very similar damselfly nymphs with which it is associ- 
ated, by reason of an odd little mannerism of its own: about once a 
second it flaps the lateral gills at the end of the body against the middle 
one. This act suggests the aimless manner in which a cat-bird flirts its 
tail; but the movement of the gills is lateral. 
