24 FOSSIL TXSKCTS OF TIIK BRITISH COAL MEASURES. 



association which exists at Coseley, Sparth Bottoms, and elsewhere is not d in- 

 to the accident of deposition or transportation, but the natural result of the 

 conditions under which insect life was passed. 



SYSTEMATIC INSCRIPTIONS. 

 Order I'AF^EOlUCTYOl'TKHA (Goldenberg), Haudlirsch. 



1877. Goldeulierg, Die Fossileu Thiere aus der Steinkohlenformation von Saarbriickeu. Fauna 



Sarsepoutana Fossilis, pt. ii, p. 8. 

 1900. Haiullirsch, Die Fossilen Insekten, p. <!1. 



Slender insects with moderate-sized head and biting' jaws, simple antenna?, 

 and two pairs of equal and similarly shaped wings. The wing-venation is not 

 unlike the hypothetical tracheation of the primitive nymph worked out by 

 Comstock and Needham ('American Naturalist,' vol. xxxii, no. o~4, p. 85, fig. 4, 

 189899). 



The wings could not be folded, being outstretched laterally in the position 

 of rest, and only moving in a vertical plane at right-angles to the body. The 

 thoracic segments are three in number, with wing-like pleurites in some cases 

 on the first segment. The abdomen has eleven segments, the eleven! li segment 

 bearing cerci. Legs all similar, and fitted for running. 



Goldenberg did not define the characters of the Order, but included in it a 

 group of Palaeozoic insects which, while somewhat related to the existing forms 

 of Neuroptera, are sufficiently unlike to prevent their inclusion in the latter 

 Order. 



llamllirsch defined the Order as a primitive generalised group, probablv the 

 ancestors of all later insects, and wholly confined to the Palaeozoic. He considered 

 that the larva? were predatory and aquatic, developing their wings gradually 

 without resting stages, and being in other respects similar to the imago. His 

 diagram of the primitive Palaeodictyopteroid wing shows a slight advance upon 

 the primitive nymph of Comstock and Xeedham, the primary tracheation being 

 increased bv the development of cross-nervures, uniting to form a meshwork. 



Family DKTYONKCUIIM-:, Ilandlirsch. 



lyOti. Haudlirsch, Die Fossilen Insekten, p. Ii;!. 



lyl'J. Hundlirsch, Revision der Paliio/oisclit-n Insekten, p. 3. 



Palaeozoic insects in which the wings possess a close reticulated neuration 

 between the principal veins, the latter strong and parallel over the first third of 

 the wing. Branches of the radial sector, median and cubit us few in number, and 

 strongly curved back to the inner margin. 



Ilandlirsch regards this family as closely related to Microdictya. 



