Prof. W. King's Notes on Permian Fossils, 333 



different kinds of individuals (male and female) are produced by 

 the parent, to which all other aberrations can be reduced. But 

 reference may here be made to the system of alternate genera- 

 tions, which reaches up into the class of insects (in the Aphides 

 and the Psychidean genus Talaporia) ; and that amongst these, 

 individuals are produced immediately from the female parent 

 (the so-called nurses) which are quite different from the neuters. 

 The neuter ants are to be compared with these ; from which 

 however they again recede, in never being capable of repro- 

 duction. 



EXPLANATION OF PLATE III. 

 Representing the four different forms of (Ecophthora pusilla. 



Fig. I. The Female. — 1. Natural size; 2. magnified ten times; 3. side- 

 view ; a^ the pronotum ; c?. the side-piece of the prothorax ; 

 b^. the mesonotum ; W". the scutellum ; b^. the side-piece of the 

 mesothorax ; c^ the first segment of the metanotum ; c^. the 

 hinder segment of the same, with the spinules ; d. the first joint 

 of the abdominal pedicle ; e. the second joint of the same ; 4. the 

 labrum ; 5, the mandible ; 6. the fore-leg ; b. tibia ; c. the pec- 

 tinate hook; d. the tarsus ; 7. the claws. 



Fig. II. The Male. — 1. Magnified ten times; 2. fore tibia with tarsus 'y 

 3. its hook, more highly magnified. 



Fig. III. The Soldier. — 1. Natural size; 2, ten times magnified ; 3. side- 

 view, in the attitude of gnawing a piece of meat ; 4. mandible ; 



5. the rest of the trophi; a. mentum; b. maxillce; ¥. the stipes; 

 P. the palpus; b^. the sheath; c^ the tongue; c^. its palpi; 



6. the last four joints of the antennae. 



Fig. IV. The Labourer. — 1. Natural size; 2. magnified ten times; 

 3. the mandibles; 4. the antennae; 5. the fore-leg; 6. the claw- 

 joint of the same ; 7. the middle leg. 



XXVIIL — Notes on Permian Fossils : — Palliobranchiata. By 

 William King, Professor of Mineralogy and Geology in 

 Queen^s University, Ireland (Q. C. Galway) ; Corresponding 

 Member of the Natural History and Medical Society of 

 Dresden, &c. 



(Concluded from p. 269.) 



Family Rhynchonellidae, Gray, 1848. 



Genus Rhynchonella, Fischer de Waldheim. 



In one of Mr. Davidson's usual valuable papers lately pub- 

 lished*, he has been led to question the existence of the genus 

 Rhynchonella during the Permian period. The query evidently 

 has reference to the uncertainty hitherto prevailing as regards the 



* " A few Remarks on the Brachiopoda," Ann. and Mag. of Nat. Hist. 

 Dec. 1855. 



