CHAPTER XVII 

 ORDER EMBIIDINA* 



The Emhiids 



This order is composed of small and feeble insects in which the body 

 is elongate and depressed. The winged members of, the order have two 

 pairs of wings, which are quite similar inform and structure; they are 

 elongate, membranous, extremely delicate, and folded on the back when 

 at rest; the venation of the wings is considerably reduced. The mouth- 

 parts are formed for chewing. Cerci are present and consist each of two 

 segments. The metamorphosis is of a peculiar type. 



This is a small order of insects; Enderlein ('12 a) in his monograph 

 of the Embiidina of the world lists only sixty-one species. The body 

 is elongate and depressed (Figs. 387 and 388). Only the males are 

 winged ; and in some genera this sex also is 

 wingless. The venation of the wings is re- 

 duced ; this reduction has been brought 



Fig- 387. — Embia sabulosa, male. (After En- 

 derlein.) 



Fig. 388. — Embia sabulosa, 

 female. (After Enderlein.) 



about both by the coalescence of veins and by the atrophy of veins. 

 Each of the veins of the wings extends along the middle of a brown band ; 

 between these bands the membrane of the wing is pale in color. The 

 alternating brown and pale bands give the wing a very characteristic 



*Embiidina: Embiidae, Embia, embios {tfi^Tos), lively. 



(338) 



