256 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [Oct., '05 



appendages. As couple after couple flew by, I observed in 

 every case that the female grasped the abdomen of the male 

 with her feet. The Tetragoneurias skirted the shores, each 

 one confining itself generally to a limited stretch. About 

 noon one was observed which seemed to have a pellet of some 

 sort attached beneath near the end of the abdomen. It was 

 captured, and I had no suspicion it was a female, so exactly 

 like the males' had its flight been, till I took it from the net. 

 I looked at once for the pellet which was sticking to the net. 

 With Professor Needham's New York observations on the 

 genus at once in mind, I hastened to place the pellet in water. 

 Slowly it uncoiled into a strand of eggs about three inches 

 long. The eggs were compact, and but little gelatinous mat- 

 ter was apparent. This increased rapidly in amount, however> 

 till the diameter of the strand was about a quarter of an inch. 

 The pellet of eggs when taken from the net was elliptical in 

 shape, measuring about five-sixteenths of an inch in the long 

 axis and scarcely one-fourth of an inch in the short axis. The 

 strand when first placed in water had a diameter of less than 

 one-eighth of an inch. 



Now to see the act of ovipositing. After an hour or two of 

 watching, an individual was seen flying with a similar yellow 

 pellet. Back and forth she flew, sometimes fifty yards from 

 me, in spite of my efforts to keep her in close view. One pur- 

 pose of the large, widely-forked vulvar lamina, which reaches 

 beyond the end of the ninth abdominal segment, was now 

 plain. It is the lower flexible and movable side of a vise in 

 which the pellet of eggs is held and carried. The female flew 

 rapidly, evidently not looking for a point for ovipositing. The 

 pellet, which remained apparently the size when first seen, 

 was " ripening" so its uncoiling in the water would be more 

 rapid than had been the case with the pellet I had taken from 

 the first female. The flight of the female under observation 

 became more deliberate and she approached nearer the surface. 

 Suddenly the tip of the abdomen swept the water as rapidly as 

 though the species were a Libellula or Tramea. Delay would 

 be fatal here, for the pond is filled with hungry species of the 

 bass family, which all during the day were breaking the water 



