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THE ESSEX NATURALIST.
quently been commented upon by those who knew the Club,
say, twenty years ago and who have returned to it in recent
times. Our Club has become in very deed a Club and not merely
a Society—the "club spirit" is fostered and the effect is seen
in the willing aid given to help on its interests.
It only remains for me to urge our members, and particularly
our younger members, to come forward and take up the burden
of work so zealously and well performed by their predecessors
in advancing the useful work of the Club.
SOME BIOLOGICAL NOTES ON DRAGON-FLIES.
By EDGAR E. SYMS, F.E.S.
[Read 30th November, 1929.]
DRAGONFLIES are insects which have always attracted
my attention ; the beautiful colours of the adult in-
sects, their interesting life-history and anatomy have given me
many hours of pure delight. This paper is intended to give
a general account of the external structure of these insects,
and of their life-history, and I add a list of those found in Epping
Forest.
Dragonflies were placed by Linnaeus in the order Neuro-
ptera, forming the family Libellulidae, of which he knew only
56 species. His pupil Fabricius, in rearranging the orders in
accordance with their mouth structures, placed them in a
separate order, calling them Odonata, on account of their toothed
mandibles. Dr. Shipley later suggested the name Paraneuro-
ptera and it is by this name that they are now generally called.
Most people know a dragonfly when they see one and many
are afraid of them, calling them horse-stingers, but this name
is absolutely wrong, for they do not possess a sting and they
are perfectly harmless to both man and other animals.
The Paraneuroptera are insects with a mandibulate mouth,
large compound eyes and small bristle-like antennae. They have
four elongate membranous wings that are equal in size or nearly
so, the nervures dividing the wing into minute rectangular cells.
The abdomen consists of ten segments and at its extreme end are
a number of anal appendages. The larva is aquatic and the