892 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXVIll. 
of the day! I can still remember the thrill I experienced when I finally bagged 
my prey. I have had many such thrills before and since. 
(iii) Besides the sport of collecting and the collection itself there are other 
interests underlying the study of dragonflies. These insects on account of 
their naked and strongly veined wings have lent themselves peculiarly to the for- 
mation of geological specimens. Thus a very large percentage of insect fossils 
are those of dragonflies and we are enabled with the mass of material avail- 
able, to trace their evolution in an almost imbroken chain of descent down to 
modem times. The venation is so diverse in spite of the basic scheme which 
runs through all, that even in modem species we can trace a chain of descent 
beginning from those resembling fossil species and ending in a very highly or- 
ganised and structmally perfect wing. Some present day dragonflies are so much 
akin to fossil species that they must be regarded as survivals from the past and 
here in India we find several of these. Any one who has the time and oppor- 
tmiity to visit the British Musemn should pay a visit to the lower insect galleries 
where I am sure ]\Ir. Herbert Campion Avill only be too pleased to show him the 
beautiful collection of fossil dragonflies. Here one will see the wings delineated 
on the slates of Solenhofen with the most wondrous exactitude. 
(iv) Dragonflies are amphibious insects spending the greater part of their 
life in a watery element. The larvae are chitinous or homy insects and, unlike 
those of butterflies or moths, can be preserved in the dry state without any 
difificulty. It is true that they are not objects of beauty but what they lack 
in this respect they more than compensate for by their interesting and curious 
formation. They have no resting stage correspondmg to the pupal or chrysalid 
state of the Lepidoptera but change direct from the larva to the winged insect. 
When a larva prepares to change into the aerial form, it climbs out of the water 
and ascends some reed or rock bordering the pond, tank or river in which it has 
been living, and it is in such places that the empty shells or “ exuvia” as they are 
called must be sought for. The exuvia make very interesting objects in a col- 
lection and can be mounted alongside the corresponding dragonflies. 
If one of the exuAria or larvae be examined they will be found to possess short 
wing cases and if these be further examined, it will be seen that they bear an 
exact repHqua in minatiu'e of the destined venation of the dragonfly that has 
or will eventually emerge from it. Thus it is often possible to tell by an exa- 
mination of the wing cases to what species the larva or exuvia belongs, even if 
we have not seen the actual dragonfly emerge. 
In June 1918 Dr. S. Kemp of the Zoological Smvey of India whilst hunting 
for exuvia and larvae near Ghum in the Himalayas Ashed up a specimen which 
looked very much like a Gomphme larvae. This has since been determined by Drs. 
Laidlaw and Tillyard as the larva of a new Epiophlebia, the venation of its 
wing cases corresponding to that genus. There is only one species at present" 
knoAvn of this very interesting genus, which forms a connecting link between the 
two big suborders into which dragonflies are divided. This species, which is 
the only representative of its suborder knOAvm to exist in the world, is found 
in Japan, so that the discover\- of a larva pointing to the existence of a second 
species is of absorbing interest. The Avinged insect belonging to Dr. Kemp’s 
larva is so far imknoAAoi — what a prize aAvaits the collector in that district ? 
In the Nilgiris last year I came across a new Anaciaeschna, a fine lai’ge spe- 
cies marked in dark brown and bright apple green. All the specimens Avere 
females and so far not a single adult male has been seen. The larvae hoAvever 
were easy and plentiful to obtain and from these I have succeeded in r.earing 
males. Thus it is possible for any collector to obtain larvae and possibly rear up 
imknoAvn or rare species. Dragonflies present many cmious and puzzling prob- 
lems like those mentioned above, the larvae of some of our commonest species 
being unknoAATi whilst the larvae of some of the rarest may be quite common. 
^v) The Lepidoptera of India have been worked almost drjq the study of 
her dragonflies remains in its infancy, much remains to be .solved of their life- 
histories, many new species remain to be discovered so that there is ahvays the 
