PRELIMINARY NOTES ON THE ODONATA. 83 
illustration of this was found at a small slough in Cedar County, Iowa, 
on July 17th, 1908. Four young birds, as large as their parents, were 
lined up on the uppermost wire of a fence that cut across the margin 
of the pond at a distance of six or eight feet from the shore. The 
old birds were busy upon repeated trips to the center of the pond, 
where they could usually be seen to take Pachydiplax and Sympetrum 
on the wing, though they at times half-descended among the tall grasses 
that formed dense clusters everywhere in the shallow water and arose 
again immediately with food in their beaks. All of these insects were 
fed to the noisy young upon the fence. It happened that the wind was 
blowing from the pond past the birds to the shore, and here, scattered 
over the pasture land were dozens of dragon-fly wings, which had 
been clipped off as their possessors were given to the young birds. The 
species represented were Pachydiplax longipennis, Leucorhimia intacta, 
Sympetrum sp., Libellula pulchella, Plathemis lydia and certain Lestes. 
Years ago the writer remembers having seen numbers of dragon- 
fly wings about the ponds where swallows were very plentiful, and 
for several seasons (1907-1909) observations were made beneath a ) 
Martin house (Progne subis subis) in the yard of a friend. Innumer- 
able Aeshnid and larger Libellulid wings were picked up. 
Mr. Geo. J. Miller has described to the writer the capture of Anax 
junius by chipmunks (Tamias sp.). While on a canoe cruise down the 
boundary to International Falls during the summer of 1914, he found 
the Chipmunks very common and absolutely fearless about camp. 
And as they perched upon logs or stumps within a few feet of him 
they were quite likely to be munching away on a big green body of this 
dragon-fly, the four wings extended to the sides between the grasping 
paws and the long abdomen hanging, tail-like, beneath. How the 
insects were captured was not discovered. 
Dragon-flies of all sizes have been found caught or enmeshed in 
spiders’ webs. Most of the cases reported do not indicate, however, 
that the captives had been eaten into by the spiders. Walker gives an 
account of a single case of a partly eaten specimen of Aeshna tuber- 
culifera in the web of Argiope trifaciata Forsk. At Lake Madison, 
near Mankato, the common garden spider (Miranda aurentia) was 
very abundant among the vegetation on the gravel flats, and several 
instances of enmeshed insects were noted by the writer. Dead but 
uneaten Enallagmas and Lestes were not uncommon in the webs and 
some of them had been there long enough to become dry and hard. 
One male of Aeshna interrupta lineata was come upon, however, while 
still struggling violently for freedom. The spider ran out to the center 
