671 



NOTES ON NEUROPTERA AND DESCRIPTIONS OF 

 NEW SPECIES. 



By Walter W. Froggatt, F.L.S. 

 (Plate XX.) 



Very little attention has been given to the small things among 

 Australian insects, until the last few years, in anj' of the Orders 

 outside the Coleoptera and Lepidoptera; so that when one is 

 working at Economic Entomology and has to know something 

 about the more obscure groups, one is frequently coming across 

 strange insects overlooked by the specialist. This is very notice- 

 able in such an anomalous Order as the Neuroptera, which until 

 the late Robert McLachlan took up the study of their habits, 

 had almost been passed over by English entomologists. 



I now record the discovery of two members of the Family 

 Einhiicke, hitherto unknown in Australia; and a second species 

 of the Family NemopteridcE, the onl}^ other one known having 

 been described by Westwood over fifty years ago. 



Family EMBIID^^. 



The exact location of these curious little insects is still some- 

 what uncertain. Sharp places them in the second family of the 

 Neuroptera, next to the Termites. Redtenbacher brackets them 

 between the latter and the Blattid^e; but McLachlan doubts 

 whether they are related to the Termites; while Wood-Mason 

 calls them Orthopterous insects. Grassi, after working out their 

 anatomy, leaves them midway between the two Orders, and con- 

 siders that they should be raised into a separate Order. Ha*yen 

 ■oonsiders that they are more closely related to the Termites than 

 to any other family, but show affinity to the Psocidse. Latreille 



