269 



STUDIES IN AUSTRALIAN NEUROPTERA. 



No. iv. The Families Ituonida:, IIrmkrobud.e, Si yhid^, 



• Berothid^e, and the new Family Trichomatid.e; with 



A Discussion of their Characters and Relationships, 



AND Descriptions of new and little-known Genera and 



Species. 



By R. J. TiLLYARD, M.A., B.Sc, F.L.S., F.E.S., Linnean 

 Maclbay Fellow of the Society in Zoology. 



(Plates xii.-xix., and ten Text-figs.) 



Introduction. 



In No. 2 of this series of Studies,* I dealt with the families 

 Osmylidft', 3fyrmeleotttidce, and Ascalaphidce. There remained 

 over for study a large number of tlie smaller and more generalised 

 Neuroptera, usually included more or less loosely in the family 

 HemerohiidcB. The working-out of this material, contained 

 chiefly in my own collection, but augmented by the loan of 

 specimens from the Queensland Museum, Brisbane, and from 

 Mr. Froggatt's collection, has proved a difficult and protracted 

 task. It would not, indeed, have been difficult to ofier merely 

 descriptions of new species, for the great majority of the species 

 studied were new to science. The problem lay rather in attempt- 

 ing to form a conception of the true positions occupied by the 

 smaller " Lacewings" within the Order Neuroptera. I was faced, 

 at the start, with the fact that the family Hemerohiidoi had never 

 been clearly defined from the very outset; that, as limb after limb 

 had been chopped off from the old Hemerobiid tree (which 

 originally embraced the whole of the Order Neuroptera, as we 

 now accept it), the old hollow stump had become more and more 

 the receptacle for any remnants which would not fit cleai-ly into 



* These Proceedings, 1916, xli., pp.41-70, 



31 



