CHARACTERISTICS OF INSECTS AND THEIR RELATIVES 25 



Protura are not yet clearly understood, but the general opinion 

 among morphologists and sys- 

 tematists is tending more and 

 more to place these tiny crea- 

 tures in an ordinal group, the 

 Protura, among the insects in the 

 class Hexapoda. It has seemed 

 best to follow this general trend 

 and we have, therefore, trans- 

 ferred this group to the class 

 Hexapoda, order Protura, on p. 

 220. 



In commenting on the posi- 

 tion of the group in the original 

 edition of the Introduction, Pro- 

 fessor Comstock gave the follow- 

 ing discussion and explanation of 

 his conclusions at that time : 



"The first discovered species 

 was described in 1907 by Profes- 

 sor F. Silvestri of Portici, who 

 regarded it as the type of a dis- 

 tinct order of insects, for which 

 he proposed the name Protura. 

 Later Professor Antonio Berlese 

 of Florence described several 

 additional species, and pubHshed pjg_ ^e.—Acerentomon doderoi: A, dor- 

 an extended monograph of the sal aspect; B, ventral aspect; 1, 1, 1, 



A /-D ^ > z,\ vestigial abdominal legs (After 



order (Berlese 09 h). Berime). 



"Professor Berlese concluded 

 that these arthopods are more closely allied to the Myriapoda and 

 especially to the Pauropoda than they are to the insects, and changed 

 the name of the order, in an arbitrary manner, to Myrientomata. 



"It seems clear to me that in either case whether the order is classed 

 among the insects or assigned to some other position it should be 

 known by the name first given to it, that is, the Protura. 



"In the present state of our knowledge of the affinities of the classes 

 of arthropods, it seems best to regard the Protura as representing a 

 separate class, of rank equal to that of the Pauropoda, Symphyla, 

 etc.; and for this class I have adopted the name proposed for the 

 group by Berlese, that is the Myrientomata." 



