126 



FOSSIL INSECTS FRoM COMMENTRY, FRANCE, 



mandibles of these latter insects are much more strongly built, 

 and are attached to a broad and massive head that is as unlike 

 that of ^fegagnatha as it well could be. We may well ask, are 

 these "mandibular-like structures" mandibles'? Is it not much 

 more likely that they are the maxillary jDalpi, whose joints, like 

 those of the antennae, have become obscured in the fossil? They 

 are too slender to have been of any use for biting; and sucking 

 mandibles, such as we find in the Ant-lion, do not occur, as far 

 as we know, in any imaginal form whatever; nor are even such 

 suckin^i; mandibles ever so slender as in this fossil. 



Text-fig. 1. 

 Mt(jagnatlui odonatiformisl^ditoxi', {y-i:2). Upper Carboniferous of Coni- 

 mentry. From Bolton's PI. i., fig. 2. The short cercus on the left 

 side of the figure is not shown in Bolton's figure, but is visible in his 

 fig. 1 (photograph). 



T am, therefore, forced again to conclude that no real aliinity 

 can be demonstrated between this fossil and the Megaloptera. 



