of the Seychelles. 271 



number of my specimens collected at Praslin and Malie* were 

 destroyed by ants, and in several instances I could not suc- 

 ceed in again capturing some of the more local forms. This 

 was especially the case with my first collection of dragon- 

 flies ; the store-box in which I had packed a lot of specimens 

 was entered by the ants, and the whole series destroyed. As 

 it was a very carefully made English store-box, without any 

 apparent place of exit or entrance for the smallest insect, I 

 was at a loss to account for this disaster. At last, determined 

 to find out how the ants got in, I left the box tightly fastened 

 as before, with half-a-dozen cockroaches pinned inside ; and 

 in a few hours I was able to trace the swarm of ants to the 

 side of the box, and I then found that they got in along the 

 side of one of the small screws which fastened on the hinge, 

 and which unfortunately came through. These facts must be 

 borne in mind when drawing any conclusion from the paucity 

 of species met with by me : first, I was at Mahe' at the 

 wrong season of the year ; and, secondly, I only saved a small 

 portion of my collection. 



On the eastern side of Praslin there is a large extent of flat 

 land, nearly the whole of which is under cultivation as a 

 cocoanut-tree plantation under the charge of Mr. Osughrue. 

 Through this plain a little stream, coming down from the 

 mountains, wanders ; in some places it spreads out into large- 

 sized ponds, but in very many places it is so small as to be easily 

 stepped over. Where it flows into the sea there is, in the dry 

 season, a large sand-bank which in the wet season is swept 

 again into the sea by the force of the current of fresh water. 

 The water is sweet, but becomes a little brackish where it 

 approaches the sea-sands ; and in this portion it abounds with 

 many small fish, upon which Ardeola lepida (Manik) feed ; 

 now and then a Poule d'eau (Gallinula chloropus) is to be seen 

 under the bamboo-canes ; attached to the framework of a small 

 bridge over this stream near the sea I collected several fine 

 masses of Sjwngilla alba of Carter, hitherto known only as 

 from the tanks of Bombay. All along this river, in the month 

 of October, dragonflies abounded, and all the species collected 

 by me were met with here. One species only of several 

 which I collected at Mahe, Libellula hemihyalma, survived 

 the ravages of the ants. Knowing that Mr. M'Lachlan was 

 interested in the study of the Neuroptera, I took the oppor- 

 tunity of sending him a few common species collected in the 

 spring of 1868 at Syracuse, to send also the remnants of my 

 Seychelles collection. This he forwarded to Baron E. de Selys- 

 Longchamps, who has most kindly not only named all the 

 species, but in the following paper has described a new genus, 



