28 SCUDDER ON THE DEVONIAN 



and they have just sufficient regularity to render it most probahle that the central, 

 irregular, rough, and slightly elevated mass is either the relic of a foreign substance, 

 which has fallen upon the wing, subsequent pressure upon which, when the membrane of 

 the wing formed, so to speak, a part of the floor upon which it lay, has caused the mud and 

 membrane together to assume the present appearance ; or, that we chance here to have 

 stumbled on a wing which, in the nymph condition, has met with some accident, producing 

 in the imago a blister-like distortion, such as those figured by Mocquerys, as suggested to 

 me by Dr. Hagen, in the elytra of Carohns monilis, Mesonphalia gibba, Timarcha 

 rugosa, and as must have been observed in the veined wings of insects of the other 

 orders by all entomologists. This last suj^position would better account for the greater 

 prominences of the 2:)cculiar markings around one part of the scar than elsewhere, and 

 for the apparent partial conformity of the cross venation to the contour of the scar. 

 Whichever way it be considered, it does not now appear to me reasonable to maintain my 

 former hypothesis of a stridulating organ, to which nevertheless there is, as stated, 

 a remarkable general resemblance. That such a stridulating organ would be a great 

 anomaly no one can question, and the proposition should not be maintained in the 

 face of the objections which careful and prolonged study and comparison elicit. 



But putting aside its extraneous features, we may discuss the affinities of this insect on 

 the basis of the unquestionable characteristics of its neuration, and shall find in these enough 

 to excite our interest and even to perplex us. In its general features the wing is plainly 

 neuropterous. It would a]3pear from the strength of the margin to be an upper wing, 

 and in its form to resemble that of many true Neuroptera ; its sweeping forking branches 

 with direct transverse cross venation attest the same projiosition, but when we come to 

 compare it with known types, we shall find it extremely difficult to place it. Its very 

 open neuration is one general feature which is peculiar ; the presence of two or three 

 very prominent cross veins, with an extreme multitude of feeble cross veins never 

 breaking up into an irregular reticulation, is certainly strange ; so is the termination of 

 the mediastinal vein, and still more the entire simplicity and extreme separation of the 

 internomedian veins, occupying so large an area of the Aving without a fork, and 

 connected in so unusual a manner with the veins on either side ; the apparent absolute 

 amalgamation of the bases of the scapular and externomedian veins in such early insects 

 is very unexpected ; — and all combine to form an ensemble which is the odder for the 

 general simplicity of the neuration. It would l^e hard to say which is the most prominent 

 vein in the wing ; the scapular, externomedian and internomedian occupy about equal 

 areas, and while the two former branch more than the latter, their nervules are compar- 

 atively much feebler. 



In the openness and sparseness of the neuration and in the paucity (but not 

 at all in the position) of the principal cross veins, it bears a certain resemblance to 

 the Coniopterygidae and to no other neuropterous family ; but the differences are far 

 greater and more important than the resemblances and scarcely need be stated. 



There are also some features wliich give it a sialidan appearance ; if we suppose, as we 

 may, that the second nervule reaching the margin below the main scapular vein arises 

 from the mam scapvUar branch, we shall have a condition of the scapular vein very like 

 that of the Sialina, excepting in the slight number of offshoots from its branch, which 

 would be very abnormal ; in the near or actual amalgamation of the externomedian 



