572 MESOzoic Insects of Queensland, iv., 



statement tliat the early ancestors of the Lepidoptera took no 

 food in the iraaginal condition. This argument defeats itself. 

 For, if these insects took no food as imagines, then 'surely their 

 descendants must have even more aborted mouth-parts than 

 their ancestors, and thus they should all be either Hepialidce or 

 Saturniidcp. I Surely the ancestors of those Lepidoptera that are, 

 to-day, of the haustellate type were originally of the weak man- 

 dibulate type still preserved in Micropteryx and allies, and were, 

 therefore, pollen-feeders and lappers-up of dew and rain-drops, 

 as the great majority of the Planipennia, Mecoptera, Trichoptera 

 and Diptera are to day ! 



To my mind, the great argument against Diinstania being a 

 Lepidopteron is simply this, that the venation, quite apart from 

 the mere number of the veins, does not show any of the typical 

 arrangements of that Order, whether Frenatae or Jugatpe. As 

 soon as I had sufficiently mastered the wing-venation uf the 

 Order, I became convinced of this, and definitely rejected my 

 original placing of the fossil. It is part of the object of this 

 paper to relate how the opinions of different entomologists, look- 

 ing at the problem from different points of view, favoured the 

 claims of various Orders to receive this fossil; but none, includ- 

 ing myself, who had the type-specimen itself to study, succeeded 

 in finding the true solution, which was at last given by the 

 study of the new material. 



Starting from Mr. Meyrick's suggestion that Dunstania might 

 be Homopterous, I find that a number of correspondents enter- 

 tained this idea, the strength of which lies, of course, in the in- 

 terpretation of the margin of the wing as corneous. However, 

 Mr. J. Edwards, of Cheltenham, England, an acknowledged 

 expert upon this Order, wrote to Mr. Meyrick, and also to me, 

 strongly opposing the idea, on the ground that he could see 

 nothing in the fossil to indicate such a relationship. As the 

 Homoptera are well represented in the Ipswich Trias by forms 

 differing entirely from Dunstania, and as I was unable to estab- 

 lish a single venational character common to the two types, I 

 soon abandoned any idea of relationships in this direction. 



In correspondence, other entomologists discussed with me the 



