HOWE: NEW ENGLAND ODONATA 107 
Since the publication of Part VI of the author's Manual he 
has accumulated nearly a thousand additional records, and eight 
additional species have been recorded from the area.^ This paper 
on distribution, it is hoped, will for the time being, prove adequate 
as a basis for the further study of New England Odonata. 
Topography 
The topography of New England is so well known, and has been 
so fully set forth from a faunal point of view that it is quite un- 
necessary to discuss it here at length (Scudder, Butterflies of East. 
U. S. & Can., 1 : 75-86, 1889). That the area abounds in every 
variety of inland water, from the small pond to the extensive lake, 
and from the little stream to the large river; that it has an ex- 
tended and diversified seacoast; that it rises from tide-washed 
lowlands through hill country to bare mountain-tops, is common 
knowledge. It is therefore not surprising that of the 494 species 
and subspecies listed in Dr. Muttkowski's Catalogue of the Odo- 
nata of North America (1910), which comprises only 19 per cent 
of those known to science for the whole world, 164 have been re- 
corded from New England, or practically 33 per cent of those attrib- 
uted to the continent. This is an admittedly large proportion if 
we consider that these States occupy about 1;^ of the total continen- 
tal area. From Massa,chusetts alone have been recorded 139 
species, 28 per cent, and its area is only about one-eighth that of 
New England. In Indiana where intensive collecting has been 
carried on over a long period of years (1895-1921), 26 per cent have 
been recorded from an area approximately one half that of New 
England. 
Faunal Areas 
In the explanation of odonate distribution Dr. C. H. Merriam's 
paper on Life Zones of the United States (1898) has been generally 
used, and according to his divisions four life zones are represented 
in New England: the Hudsonian and Canadian of the Boreal, and 
the Transition and Upper Austral of the Austral regions. As all 
New England lies in the humid eastern l^clt, the Transition Zone is 
^ Supplement, Manual New England Odonata. Mom. Thoroau Mus. Nat. 
Hist., 2, 1-14, March, 1921. 
