INSECTS OP NEW BRUNSWICK. 23 



The externomedian vein next the base of the wing is somewhat distant from the scap- 

 ular, is afterwards still further removed from it, and, in the middle half or more of 

 the wing, has a somewhat irregular, sinuous, longitudinal course, sub-parallel to the 

 scapular vein ; just before the end of the basal quarter it appears to have a straight ob- 

 lique inferior branch widely divergent from it ; this is the vein next the lower margin 

 of the fragment ; by its course it would appear to be a branch of the externomedian, but 

 it is not imjiossible that it may be the internomedian vein ; whichever it is, it forks in the 

 middle of the second quarter of the wing, each fork being straight, simple and shghtly 

 divergent. From the point where this inferior branch appears to be thrown off from the 

 externomedian vein, a superior branch appears also to be emitted ; it scarcely parts from 

 the vein and runs only a short distance along the interspace in a nearly straight line and 

 then dies out. Beyond this the externomedian vein throws off two, so far as can be seen 

 simple, branches, which are nearly straight, obliquely longitudinal, and part from the vein, 

 one at the middle of the wing, the other a short distance before it or just below the 

 branch of the scapular vein. The interspaces thus formed below the scapular vein are 

 very unequal and variable in breadth, giving the neuration a feeble uncertain appearance, 

 which is heightened by the irregular distribution of the cross veins, which, although nearly 

 always straight and transverse, sometimes bridge the narrowest, sometimes the broadest 

 parts of the interspaces ; they are exceedingly feeble and infrequent, the largest number 

 being found in the interspace between the scapular and externomedian veins, although 

 they may have been present in some of the areas where they cannot now be seen. 



We shall seek in vain to accommodate this wing in any of the modern families of 

 Neuroptera. There are none excepting the Ephemeridae, the Embidae and perhaps the 

 Raphidiidae, in which the externomedian vein has such a preponderating importance, and 

 in none of these do the scapular or externomedian veins have a structure at all similar. 

 The structure of the scapular vein is somewhat similar to Avhat we find in the Sialina, but 

 is widely different from it in the paucity of the offshoots of the scapular branch, in which 

 this wing is comparable to Xenoneura only. The structure of the externomedian vein is 

 also distantly similar to that of the Sialina, but in this family, in modern times at least, 

 the number of j^rincipal branches is always fewer, they never assimae such a longitudinal 

 course, and never cover so great an area. We must, therefore, separate this group from 

 all known families, as one having its nearest affinities to Sialina in modern times, and 

 perchance to Xenoneuridae in the ancient ; and, considering it as in some sense a 

 precursor of the Sialina, may call it Cronicosialina.^ It should be looked upon as a family 

 of Neuroptera proper, of feeble neuration, in which the scapular vein emits a main branch 

 near the middle of the wing, which, running nearly parallel to the main vein, emits one 

 or at most two subsidiary, also longitudinal, sunple offshoots. The externomedian vein, 

 tolerably distant from the former throughout, terminates near the tip of the wing, emitting 

 two or three branches at very unequal distances apart, all of them longitudinal and all but 

 the basal simple ; the irregular interspaces thus formed are crossed at very unequal 

 distances by very feeble but straight cross veins. The lower veins are unknown. 



This specimen is the most obscure of all the devonian insects and would have 

 been overlooked by any less keen-sighted observer than the late Professor C. F. Hartt. 



' Kpmuuq, old fashioned. 



