440 Scientific Proceedings, Royal Dublin Society. 
gratitude to Mr. W. F. Kirby for his invaluable catalogue’ of the 
order. The present paper has been compiled chiefly from that 
catalogue, the nomenclature of which has been adopted in spite 
of some highly inconvenient revolutions, necessitated by the appli- 
cation of the law of priority. The most important of these is the 
restoration of the name Agrion to the genus which Leach called 
Calopteryx, a new name, Cenagrion, being coined to replace Agrion 
as used by Leach and subsequent writers. The recognised division 
of the Odonata into six well-marked sub-families has been followed, 
and these are apportioned among three families—Libellulidea, 
A®schnide, and Agrionidze—as in the usual classification. Mr. 
Kirby’s catalogue was published in 1890. All genera described 
since, so far as I have been able to ascertain them, have been: 
inserted; and in reckoning the number of species in each genus I 
have also tried to incorporate the latest results, so that the tables — 
given below may be taken to represent our knowledge of the 
subject at the end of the present year (1896). Where the name 
in Mr. Kirby’s catalogue differs from that in general use, the latter 
is added in parenthesis. | 
The regions and sub-regions adopted in the tables of distribu- 
tion are, on the whole, those of Sclater and Wallace.” I have, 
however, reckoned the Mascarene division of the Ethiopian as a 
separate region, and it will be found that the dragonfly-fauna of 
Madagascar and the adjacent islands has no more affinity with 
that of Africa than with that of Oriental Asia. Also I have 
divided the Nearctic region as suggested by Dr. Hart Merriam,’ 
adding the Canadian sub-region to the Palearctic to form’a 
Holarctic region, and calling the rest of extra-tropical North 
America, Sonoran. While the distribution of dragonflies affords 
considerable support to this revision of the classic zoological regions, 
it must be admitted that several Holarctic genera range over the 
Sonoran. As a rule, however, the Holarctic genera do not range 
southward nor the Sonoran northward beyond Merriam’s Tran- 
1<¢ A Synonymic Catalogue of Neuroptera Odonata.’’ London, 1890. 
2«« The Geographical Distribution of Animals.’? 2 vols. London, 1876. 
3 Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington, vol. vii., 1892, pp. 1-64. Also Natural Science, 
vol. v., 1894, p. 53. 
