NEUROPTERA— TERMITINA. 103 



femora are ovate flattened disks, distally subacuminate, more than twice as 

 long as broad, as long as (fore and middle femora), or even longer tluvn 

 (hind femora), the width of the base of the abdomen ; the tibijie are as long 

 as the femora and scarcely stouter than the caudal setae, while the tarsi are 

 scarcely if any slenderer than the tibise and less than half their length ; a 

 few lateral bristles nearly as long as the width of the abdomen can be seen, 

 indicating that one such projected from either side of each abdominal seg- 

 ment, that borne by the last segment being somewhat longer than the 

 others. The caudal setae are of nearly equal length, the central slightly 

 longer than the lateral which divaricate gently, and are nearly if not quite 

 as long as the body. Nothing can be made of the detached head extremity 

 more than its slenderness, it being about half the width of the base of the 

 abdomen. Probably the body was fusiform in outline, slender, tapering 

 from the middle of the thorax more rapidly forward than backward. The 

 last abdominal segment is somewhat abruptly truncate. 



Length of abdomen, 5.5°"" ; breadth at base, 2""" ; at tip, O.S""" ; proba- 

 ble length of fore and middle femora, 2"™ ; their breadth, 0.8""™ ; probable 

 length of hind femora, 3™"'; their breadth, 0.9"""; length of tibiae, 1.75""; 

 of tarsi, 0.75"°' (perhaps incomplete); length of outer caudal setae, 8°""; 

 of middle caudal seta, 8.5""". 



Florissant. One specimen. No. 1693. 



Family TERMITINA Stephens. 



It has generally been supposed that the white ants were present and 

 tolerably well represented in paleozoic rocks, but most of the species which 

 have been referred to this family have been shown by recent researches to 

 belong to the Protophasmida, and the others to various neuropteroid Palae- 

 odictyoptera. At least half a dozen species are known from the mesozoic 

 rocks, however, most of them coming from the Lias of England, Germany, 

 and Switzerland, the most common type being the extinct genus Clathro- 

 termes Heer, peculiar for its numerous, transverse, gently oblique cross- 

 veins in the costal field and for the dark, quadrate spots which usually ac- 

 company these and other cross-veins. If we are to follow E. Geinitz, the 

 species must have been exceedingly variable. Two white ants also occur 

 in the oolite of Bavaria, which Hagen refers to Termes proper. (1885.) 



