436 STUDIES IN AUSTRALIAN NEUROPTERA, VlH., 



should doubt whether they take any food at all that requires the 

 use of mandibles, and I have never found anything except air 

 inside the alimentary canal of a number of specimens that I dis- 

 sected. It is possible that they are only of use to the males for 

 righting one another when assembling around a female for pair- 

 ing; but I have not observed any actual combats; only a dis- 

 position to drive one another away. 



The maxillce (Text-fig. 6, c) closely resemble those of the Psy- 

 chopsidce, having the primitive five-jointed palpus, a well devel- 

 oped galea with a small terminal knob, which may be the vestige 

 of a distal joint, and a somewhat flat, blade-like lacinia, more 

 pointed than in Psychopsis, and with its outer margin carrying 

 numerous closely-set stiff hairs. The stipes is elongated, as in 

 Psychopsis, but much narrower, and carries a huge number of 

 stiff, hairs, some of them of considerable length, on its outer 

 margin. The cardo is short, as in the Psychopsidm. 



The labium (Text-fig. 6,0?) differs from that of Psychopsis in 

 showing considerable reduction of all parts except the palpi, 

 which are well developed, three-jointed, and set close together at 

 their bases, as in the Lepidoptera. The first or basal joint is 

 short, the second longer and wider, the third slightly shorter 

 than the second, and much narrower; this joint carries a row of 

 five sensory pits or depressions, with sets of minute hairs close 

 to them, and its tip is bluntly rounded and transparent, probably 

 carrying another sense-organ. There are larger hairs on the first 

 and second joints, of which a set of five stiff ones, close together, 

 projects from the inner side of the basal joint, while one or two 

 large, stiff bristles cross one another on the inner sides of the 

 second joints. The mentum, submentum, and inner lobe of the 

 labium are much reduced, and there does not appear to be any 

 definite hypopharynx as in the Psychopsidce. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY. 



1. Comstock, J. H., 1918. — "The Wings of Insects." Comstock Publish- 



ing Co., Ithaca, N.Y., 1918, {Ilhone, p. 175, fig. 170). 



2. Crampton and Hasey, 1915. — "The Basal Segments of the Leg in 



Insects." Zool. Jalnb. Abt. Anat., 1915, xxxix., p. 1. 



