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A LIST OF DR/\.GONFLIES PROM MAHABLESHWAR. 



By Major F. 0. Fkasee, i.m.s. 



I believe that I am. correct in saying tliat the Mahableshwar Hills have 

 mot yet been worked for Dragonflies, so profiting by an enforced stay in 

 India owing to having been granted Home leave, but no passage 

 wherewith to avail myself of it, I decided that it would help to 

 \pas8 away the weary period of waiting if I made a short odonatological 

 isurvey of the above mentioned Hills. 



The period embraced was from the 20th April to the 1st May which being 

 -the ultra dry season, it must be confessed, was not the best possible time 

 -of the year for such a survey. However the amateur collector in this 

 ■oountry can never be more than an opportunist as he is transferred far 

 -too often ever to be able to make a complete pro-annual survey of any 

 district. 



Mahableshwar, in spite of its high annual rainfall, is singularly dry 

 and the only water I found was a small, rather dirty, artificial lake used 

 exclusively as a dhobikhanah and a stream which resulted from the water 

 •percolating through the band which encloses the lake to the west. 



This stream meanders for but a short distance in the dry season and may 

 be said to terminate at Lingmala, two miles from Mahableshwar, where 

 i;he water, if the stream has not run dry (The bed of the stream was dry 

 this year at the foot of the Falls) topples over into the ravine at the head 

 of the Yenna Valley. 



Only one species appears to breed in the lake, but most of the other 

 dragonflies breed in the stream whilst a few ascend from the plains below. 

 A break in the river at Lingmala, a height of about 4,000 feet, creates 

 ■a gap between the fauna of the hills and that of the plains and also appar- 

 ently isolates a number of plain species which have followed up the 

 Tetreating line of water as the stream fails from below upwards. This 

 following up of tlie retreating line of water probably accounts for so many 

 ■of the plain species enumerated below, attaining to such great altitudes, 

 which in many cases is more than double that of any previously recorded. 

 Their isolation is important as it should eventually lead to some differen- 

 tiation and specialisation, but except for a local race of Aciagrion hisopa 

 and a brilliantly coloured form of Orthetrum chrysostigma, I failed to find 

 ■any sign of this taking place at present. It is possible however that a new 

 Caconeura which I found to be moderately common along the aforemen- 

 tioned stream, is an oft'shoot of a form common to the Southern Hills and 

 'Ceylon. This new species T have named after Dr. Annandale, the present 

 "Director of the Zoological Survey of India. 



Systematic. 



Aeshnlnae. 



1. Anax guttatus, Burm. Only 3 males seen, 2 of which were hawking 

 over the stream and the third was settled on a tree bordering 

 the road above the lake. 



"2. Anax immacvlifrons, Ramb. Very plentiful, indeed more so than I have 

 ever seen it elsewhere, a circumstance which is probably due to 

 the confined limits of its breeding places. 



Many males were seen at any one time and females which 

 are usually rare, could quite occasionally be seen in the act of 

 ovipositing. They were so shy and wary that it was only by 

 taking an unfair advantage of them as they were partially 



