48 Mr. II. Campion 07i 



Synthemis miranda was placed by De Selys in a separate 

 *' groupe'' of the genus, by reason of its possessing broad, 

 extensively-coloured wings, in which the ti'iangles and fore- 

 wing subtriangle are divided into two or three cells. The 

 fresh material which has now come to hand shows that the 

 venational character is the only one of systematic importance, 

 the great width of the wings being proper to the female sex 

 in this and allied species. The suffusion with yellowish and 

 brown of the basal half of each wing is merely an individual 

 character of the type, for in the three new specimens the deep 

 coloration never extends outwards beyond the level of the 

 arculus. 



The section of the genus of which ^S^. miranda is the typical 

 species appears to be peculiar to New Caledonia, and will 

 include, in addition to itself, two new species to be described 

 herein, namely_, S. montaguei and S.flexicauda. It comprises 

 species of large size, characterised by their densely 

 reticulated wings, by the fore wings having the triangle 

 regularly divided into two cells and the subtriangle into 

 three cells, and by the males having white tips to their 

 upper anal appendages. 



In respect of the reticulation of their fore-wing triangles, 

 the three large species from New Caledonia are the most 

 archaic members of the Synthemini. In other species of 

 that tribe it is not unusual for cross-veins to occur in the 

 triangles, and I have received from Dr. Tillyard a female of 

 Evsyntherais guttata aurolineata. Till., in which the triangles 

 of the fore wings exactly reproduce the conditions obtaining 

 in the Oceanic forms. But such individual cases are 

 evidently due to the accidental reappearance of an ancestral 

 character, whereas their presence is quite constant in the ten 

 specimens from New Caledonia which are now known to us. 



The position of the hind-wing triangle in relation to the 

 arculus is very variable in the Synthemini. In none of the 

 New Caledonian species is the base of the triangle removed 

 quite as far as the middle of the supertriangle, while in 

 S.flexicauda it is retracted to about a third of the super, 

 triangle's length. 



'We antenodal cross-veins in these and other Synthemini 

 exhibit two characters which one would expect to find 

 associated with the ^schnidse, rather than the Libellulidse. 

 One is the presence in all wings of an incomplete antenodal 

 at the extreme base of the subcostal space, proximal to 

 the first of the regular antenodals. In the second place, the 

 antenodals of the first series do not always coincide with 

 those of the second series; but exact coincidence, accompanied 



