PRELIMINARY NOTES ON THE ODONATA 
OF SOUTHERN MINNESOTA 
A. D. WHEDON, MANKATO, MINN. 
Introduction. 
The dragon-flies have always attracted attention. Due to their 
form, life history and habits they have been the center about which 
grew up myths, superstitions and poetry on the one hand, and on 
the other a fundamental branch of biological science. Not being 
known, however, as insects of great economic importance their study 
by American entomologists came rather later than in Europe. In 1861 
the Smithsonian Institution published a “Synopsis of the Neuroptera — 
of North America,” written by Dr. Hermann Hagen of Konigsberg. 
The first important work by an American author was Calvert’s “A 
Catalogue of the Odonata of the Vicinity of Philadelphia, with an 
Introduction to the Study of This Group of Insects,” published in 
1893. In 1899 a posthumous paper on the “Dragon-flies of Ohio,” by 
Professor David S. Kellicott, appeared, edited and completed by Mr. 
J. S. Hine. Stimulated by these papers or by contact with their authors, 
several entomologists issued state faunal lists, the best known being 
those of Williamson for Indiana (1900), Needham for Illinois (1901) 
and New York (1901 and 1903), Calvert for New Jersey (1900, 1903 
and 1909), Walker for Canada (1908) and Muttkowski for Wisconsin 
(1908). It might here be mentioned that the writer has been at work 
on the Iowa fauna since 1900, though the results are not yet pub- 
lished, and that for the past three years considerable collecting has 
been done in southern Minnesota. Wilson’s “Dragon-flies of the 
Mississippi Valley” (1909) records species collected on the river. 
In other than faunal lines the most important Odonate studies 
undoubtedly have related to wing venation. The principles discovered 
in the study of the dragon-fly have been applied to insects generally. 
This task was attempted by Professors Comstock and Needham and 
extended and further illuminated by the latter in his “Genealogical 
Study of Dragon-fly Wing Venation,” 1903. The effect upon every 
line of entomological work has been immeasurable. 
