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HISTORY OF RECORDING
The early history of the British and Irish dragonflies
is described by Cynthia Longfield (in Corbet et al.
1960). Recording in the 19th century was uneven.
Nevertheless, only four resident species have been
added to the British/Irish list since 1900
(Coenagrion hastulatum, C. armatum and C. scitulum
from Britain and, most recently, C. lunulatum from
Ireland but yet to be found in Britain). The
taxonomic status of a possible fifth additional
species, Sympetrum nigrescens, is more doubtful
(see relevant Species account). The first workers,
before 1850, concentrated their collecting activity
no doubt out of necessity in the areas closest to
honie. In the latter half of the 19th century, the
advent of the railways enabled more remote parts of
Britain and Ireland to be investigated,
including the Highlands of Scotland,
where the chance of collecting
additional species doubtless seemed
greatest. The many papers by Robert
McLachlan and others bear witness to
this. However, there is scant recorded
information on the commoner species
in the more accessible and populous
areas such as southern England.
In the present century, the appearance
of Lucas's monographs on the adults
(1900) and the larvae (1930) attracted
a few enthusiasts to the order, but the
books were soon out of print. The
Wayside and woodland volume
(Longfield 1937, 1949a) revived
interest, the second edition coinciding
with a Royal Entomological Society
Handbookto the Odonata (Fraser
1949). During the 1950s there were
important studies on the biology of
dragonflies, such as those of Philip
Corbet on the effects of environmental
factors on larval development. Norman
Moore drew attention to the role of
'territoriality' in controlling the density
of adult males beside water. A E
Gardner undertook the captive
breeding of many species in order to
describe their larvae, and published a
series of keys (Gardner 1954, 1955).
Unfortunately, only a small proportion
of the information on the distribution of
species which was generated during
this early period has been preserved in
publications and museum collections,
although some additional records have
been retrieved from the notebooks of
key workers. As is often the case today,
locality details were much more
LOCALITY
HABITAT
OTHER SPECIES:
7
complete for the rare species than for the common
ones. For example, in Longfield's review of the
dragonflies of the London area (Longfield 1949b),
Pyrrhosoma nymphula was described simply as
'abundant throughout' the area in the 1940s, but
this is no longer the case: it is now mainly confined
to acid water sites, such as parts of Epping Forest
and the Surrey heaths (Brooks 1989). This change
may indicate a considerable decline, but such
comparisons are impossible to quantify without
more detailed information on the common
species.
Zoological recording in the 1950s followed the
pattern of previous decades, with published maps
ODONATA/ORTHOPTERA
Date V.C. No.
V.C.
Alt. Code No.
Figure 1 RA4, the first Odonata recording card, February 1968 (actual size 8" x 5")