DRAGONFLIES AND DAMSELFLIES IN PONDFISH CULTURE. 223 
This destruction by the English sparrows is local and apparently casual; in the summer 
of 1917 they did not destroy as many of the tenerals as in 1916. It seems to be largely 
a matter of chance; if they happen upon the tenerals at just the right time and get a 
good meal, they return again and again. ‘The localities frequented by the tenerals are 
not the ones from which these sparrows are accustomed to get their food, however, and 
hence there is no systematic hunting for them. 
Another bird that causes great destruction among the imagos is the red-winged 
blackbird. Several pairs of these birds nested about the ponds, and they were seen 
repeatedly catching the tenerals and eating them or feeding them to their young. A 
small stake projecting a few inches above the water in pond 2 was a favorite roosting 
place for one of the male redwings, and from the alge surrounding this stake were picked 
up more than roo teneral wings of Libellula luctuosa. During experiments with the 
large breeding cage mentioned elsewhere (p. 235) adult dragonflies of several species and 
of both sexes were caught and placed in the cage. Every effort was made to induce 
them to eat, to mate, and to lay their eggs, but to no avail. One of the chief hindrances 
was an old male redwing who made it his duty to visit the cage as soon as possible after 
the dragonflies were placed in it and to pick them off through the wires. In this way 
he would have them all caught and devoured within a short time. 
Kennedy (1915, p. 343) found teneral damselflies and dragonflies in the stomachs 
of four yellow-headed and one red-winged blackbird which he examined. He also 
stated on the same page that he believed the yellow-headed blackbirds ate most of the 
teneral Anax junius at one of the ponds where he collected. Other species, such as 
Erythemis simplicicollis, A42schna multicolor, and A. californica escaped this peril of the 
birds by emerging late in the evening, so that by daylight the next morning their wings 
were hard enough to fly. 
Both E. simplicicollis and L. luctuosa roost at night in the tall grass and other 
vegetation around the ponds, and when there is a rain in the night, or an exceptionally 
heavy dew, are sometimes so bedraggled in the early morning that they are caught by 
the birds. 
In a later paper Kennedy (1917, p. 530) has noted that Ophiogomphus morrisoni at 
Donner Lake, Oreg., was seriously attacked by robins while emerging. 
In the Canadian Entomologist, volume 5, 1873, p. 159, Mr. Gould, in a communica- 
tion to the Entomological Society of London, said: 
I believe that the larger dragonflies are very liable to the attacks of birds, and have no doubt that 
the hobby and kestrel occasionally feed upon them; with regard to the small blue-bodied species 
(Agrionide) frequenting the sedgy bank of the Thames, I have seen smaller birds, sparrows, etc., 
capture and eat them before my eyes after having carefully nipped off the wings, which are not 
swallowed. This must take place to a considerable extent, as I have observed the towpath strewn 
with the rejected wings. 
The hobby and the kestrel are English hawks, but Fisher (1893) has recorded the 
swallow-tailed kite, the sharp-shinned hawk, the red-shouldered hawk, the broad- 
winged hawk, the duck hawk, the sparrow hawk, and the pigeon hawk as feeding on 
dragonflies here in the United States. 
Tillyard (1917, p..330) has stated that kingfishers are wonderfully expert at catching 
dragonflies skimming close to the water. That may be true of the kingfishers of 
Australia and New Zealand, but it is doubtful if our own belted kingfisher of the eastern 
