ISCHNURA 349 
water, but during the heat of the day it spends the greater part of its time over 
the surface of the water, usually seated on trash or aquatic vegetation. 
.... several nymphs ready to transform were taken from the trash around 
the edge of a warm spring and the exuviae were common on the grass stalks 
fringing the water. 
The females resorted to the little drain ditches to oviposit; there the males 
in great numbers awaited their coming. After a considerable time in copulation, 
seated on some grass stem the female, still accompanied by the male, would fly 
to the surface of the stream, preferably a quiet lateral pool, and commence 
ovipositing. 
In ovipositing the male held the female by the head. The pair would alight 
on floating vegetation, in a horizontal position, and the female would bend her 
abdomen slightly and make one or two incisions, after which she would raise 
the end of her abdomen considerably above the horizontal and wait in this 
position several seconds, when the pair would fly to another straw and repeat 
the one or two thrusts followed by the wait with the tip of the female’s abdomen 
in the air. This was kept up by a pair under observation, for 20 minutes. In no 
place did they make more than one or two thrusts. Further, I was not positive 
at the time that the ovipositor was actually thrust into the plant tissue, as the 
females observed put forth none of that painstaking effort usually shown by 
ovipositing dragonflies. Later, when these grass blades were examined in the 
laboratory, eggs were found in pairs. This species is undoubtedly the feeblest of 
all the western Odonata..... 
UT ele 
Gemina denticollis prognatha ramburii 

346. Ischnura gemina Kennedy 
Kndy. 717, p. 497. 
Length 28 mm. Expanse 30 mm. Calif. 
This species is similar in coloration and probably in habits to J. denticollis. 
The structural points separating the two species are given in the keys. Like 
that species the anterior surface of the thorax is solid black, there being no pale 
antehumeral stripe present. The differences are shown in our figures. 
347. Ischnura prognatha Hagen 
Hag. 61, p. 83: Mtk. Cat. p. 69: Kndy. ’20, p. 88. 
Length 36-38 mm. Expanse 45 mm. Va., Tenn. and Fla. 
This is the largest and probably the most attractive of our fork-tails. It is 
not common. Labrum greenish-yellow with a black basal band. Mouth parts, 
genae, postgenae, anteclypeus and the vertical portion of the frons green or 
