570 MESOZOIC INSECTS OF QUEENSLAND, iv., 



trace of it, and in my estimation a far more important systematic 

 character than the two which the author lays stress on." 



"It appears to me, then, that this specimen can only be 

 regarded as Lepidopterous on the theory that it is a member of 

 an entirely unknown line of development of that Order, which 

 had attained a high degree of specialisation at a period far 

 anterior to the earliest certainly Lepidopterous insect known, 

 itself a lowly organised form; this cannot be termed impossibffe, 

 but it involves a very great improbability. The alternative view 

 that the resemblances are accidental and the insect not Lepi- 

 dopterous seems to me, on the whole, less improbable." 



" I cannot venture to express any positive opinion on its pos- 

 sible relation to other Orders, but I suggest that theie are some 

 points of resemblance to the Hemiptera-Homoptera, some species 

 of which have a semi-Lepidopterous facies. The corneous margin 

 of the wing, the central cell (usually, it is true, much larger), and 

 approximate number of veins rising from it, and even the curious 

 dark banding of the membrane alongside the veins, can all be 

 paralleled in this group, which, moreover, is already known to 

 have been in existence since the Carboniferous period."* 



Mr. Meyrick's criticism led me to study intensely the various 

 types of Lepidopterous wing-venation extant, about which 1 

 knew very little at the time that I first described the fossil. I 

 very soon became convinced that Dunstania was not a Lepidop- 

 teron; but that conviction was not based, for the most part, on 

 the argument set forth by Mr. Meyrick, which I regard as un- 

 sound in several important particulars. 



Firstly, as regards Palceontina. The latest authority on the 

 family to which this fossil belongs is Handlirsch(l), who gives a 

 masterly treatment of this and allied fossils, with photographs 

 and restorations of a number of types, in some of which the 

 hindwing is complete enough to allow of definite proof that the 

 Falceoniinidce were most certainly not Hepialidm, as Meyrick 

 avers, nor even Jugatse of any kind, but definitely Frenatse allied 



* This is surely an error. No true Homoptera were known below the 

 Lias, until I described Mesojassus from the Ipswich Trias, and, later on, 

 two new genera from the Permian of Newcastle, N.S.W. 



