ON THE VARIATIONS OF AGRION PUELLA. 333 



Huntingdonshire in 1907, we have seen specimens from Sutton 

 (Mr. W. J. Lucas, 1896), and Ockham Common (Mr. Lucas, 

 June 23rd, 1900), Surrey; from Staines, Middlesex (Mr. H. J. 

 Watts, June 13th, 1909) ; and from Hever, Kent (Mr. G. Meade- 

 Waldo, June 18th, 1910). 



The cuneiform spots are always present on segments 3 to 6 ; 

 they are often repeated in an abbreviated form on segment 7, 

 and occasionally on segment 8 also. When the spots extend 

 from segments 3 to 8, as they do in the De Selys specimen, the 

 two examples in Mr. Lucas' collection, and the specimen received 

 from Mr. Meade-Waldo, the normal condition subsisting in the 

 corresponding form of pulchellwm, female, is exactly reproduced. 



In some examples of the variety the cuneiform spots are 

 green, whereas in other examples they are blue. It is not quite 

 clear whether one colour passes into the other in time, or 

 whether, as we are inclined to think is the fact, the green or the 

 blue, as the case may be, remains unchanged throughout the 

 life of the insect. We have never met with an individual whose 

 coloration was of a transitional character, and we possess both a 

 green-spotted specimen and a blue-spotted specimen which are 

 so fully matured that the supposition that any future change of 

 coloration might have taken place in those particular instances 

 seems to be excluded. As to the dates of occurrence, we have 

 so far taken green- spotted females in the month of July only, 

 but our captures of blue-spotted females have ranged from 

 June 21st (1908) to August 22nd (1909), and have therefore 

 been earlier as well as later in the year than our captures of the 

 green females ; it has been already mentioned that the Hever 

 female, which is also blue, was taken on June 18th (1910). 



The superficial resemblance of this insect to one of the forms 

 of pulchellum, female, is at all times very close. But when, as 

 sometimes happens in the same individual, a mercury-spot is 

 present on segment 2 and the cuneiform spots reach to the 

 eighth segment, that resemblance is so much enhanced that it 

 constitutes a very fertile source of confusion. Curiously enough, 

 however, Stephens mistook the variety for Agrion hastidatimi, 

 as we learn from a specimen in the British Museum labelled 

 " hastulatum, Charp.," and taken from his collection. 



Now and again females of puella are found with the normal 

 green ground colour replaced by blue on the anterior parts of 

 the body, such as the postocular spots, the thorax, and the basal 

 segments of the abdomen. Cases of this description, however, 

 cannot be regarded as varieties, and the females of several other 

 species of Odonata are apt to assume the andromorphic dress, 

 especially in advanced life. 



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