No. 401.] THE FRUITING OF THE BLUE FLAG. 375 
growing in standing water. The sheltered pools in which the 
Iris thrives best are the special haunts of these insects. Lestes 
uncata Kirby and L. unguiculata Hag. were abundant, and the 
females of these species punctured the fruiting stems so thickly 
in Ovipositing as to kill perhaps a fourth of them. These egg 
punctures sometimes completely encircled the stem, but were 
more often confined to the more exposed side, overhanging the 
water. I observed as many as 250 punctures to the inch in 
length of stem in several cases. All were above water, some 
extending nearly to the top of the stems.! Nearly every well- 
exposed stem was thus killed outright or so injured as to pre- 
vent the maturing of its seeds. ; 
Many other Odonata are seen constantly about the flag 
clumps. Longfellow singled out a natural associate when he 
wrote of the Fleur-de-lis : 
The burnished dragonfly is thine attendant ; 
but the showier dragonflies which habitually poise on the sum- 
mits of the sword-shaped leaves have no ecologic relation to 
the Iris, save indirectly through their relations with other 
insects, : 
Of ubiquitous flag-seed destroyers I have found but two; 
the larvz of a very pretty little tortricid moth, Penthina hebe- 
sana Walk., and the larva of the flag weevil (Mononychus vulpecu- 
lus Fabr.. The moth larvae were common, the weevil larve, 
. abundant; both were often found attacking the same capsule. 
The larva of Penthina bores a hole into the seed capsule at 
its base, generally under the protecting tip of a bract, and eats 
its way upward through the seeds, usually consuming in its 
lifetime about half the contents of a single cell. Then it 
undergoes its transformations under the bract, or withered 
perianth, or in its burrow.? 
1 Egg parasites of Odonata have not in this country been hitherto reported ; 
I bred from these Lestes eggs in flag stems five species of egg parasites and one 
hyperparasite, all of which proved to be species new to science. These are now 
in Mr. Ashmead's hands for uicta These species of Lestes oviposit even 
more abundantly in Spharganium lea 
? With this species there was peabar found another tortricid (Cacæcia 
rosaceana Harris) of almost identical habits. 
