INTERESTING WESTERN ODONATA. 
By CLARENCE HAMILTON KENNEDY, 
Stanford University, California. 
In the following notes I wish to give a short account of the 
habits of some of the more interesting species of western 
Odonata. These are based on field observations made by the 
writer in Washington, Oregon, California and Nevada during 
the summers of 1913 and 1914. 
Apparently because of the actual scarcity of streams in 
the west, various species of Odonata in their attempts to 
utilize all available water have taken on unusual habits or have 
developed more ordinary habits in some special direction to such 
a degree that they have almost assumed the grotesque in their 
exaggeration. One of these which might be said to have 
exaggerated habits is Archilestes californica. This species, 
known heretofore from the type and a single other specimen, is 
abundant in the Yakima Valley, Wash., and throughout Central 
California. It is a giant Lestes,. differing from the numerous 
species of that cosmopolitan genus in greater size and minor 
venational characters. 
The species of Lestes oviposit endophytically and frequently 
a foot or even two feet above the surface of the water, usually 
placing the eggs in such tender tissues as the stems of sedges and 
Juncus, or occasionally in tender willow shoots. In oviposition 
Archilestes follows the habits of its Lestes relatives, but because 
of its greater size and strength it oviposits normally from five 
to eight feet above the water and in the bark of willow stems 
that are from a half an inch to an inch and a half in diameter. 
Because of the size of some of the bushes used, it can almost 
be said to be a dragon fly that lays its eggs in trees. Ovi- 
position is a tedious process. The male holds the female by 
attaching the claspers on the end of his abdomen to the posterior 
edge of her prothorax. Then with her abdomen bent in a 
loop she forces her ovipositor slowly thru the bark and deposits 
her eggs in clutches of six in the cambium, where they remain 
dormant until the following spring. The hatching has not been 
observed, altho it is probable that the larvae wriggle from the 
bark and fall into the water below. The circle of bark, under 
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