1885.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 105 



NOTES ON MESOZOIC COCKROACHES. 

 BY SAMUEL H. SCUDDER. 



I. Pterinoblattina, a remarkable type of Palaeoblattariae. 



Among the many fossil cocki-oaches figured by Westwood 

 thirty years ago, was one which Giebel afterwards named Blatta 

 plama, on account of the resemblance of its neuration to the 

 barbs of a feather, where the shaft is on one side. Several 

 species are now known, and on account of this curious arrange- 

 ment of the veins, the generic name, 



PTERINOBLATTINA (^ript^) 

 is proposed. The wings were very broad, expanding consider- 

 ably beyond the base, broadest beyond the middle, and filled 

 with an abundance of branching veins. The mediastinal, scapular, 

 and externomedian veins ran close together, side by side, in a 

 perfectby straight-course (the shaft of the feather), from near the 

 middle of the base of the wing toward and nearly to a point on 

 the costal margin a little within the apex of the wing, and the 

 superior mediastinal and inferior externomedian branches, crowded 

 closely together, parted from this apparently common stem at 

 nearly similar angles on either side of it. The complete inde- 

 pendence of the mediastinal, scapular, and externomedian veins 

 shows that the genus falls in the Palaeoblattariae. The species are 

 all small. 



Pterinoblattina pluma. 



Blatta pluma Gieb., Ins. der Vorw., 322. Figured by Westw., Quart. 

 Journ. Geol. Soc. Lond., x, pi. 15, fig, 14f. 



The specimen, the original of which I have had the privilege of 

 studying, by the favor of my kind friend Rev. P. B. Brodie, is 

 rather imperfect, and a little deceptive from the fact that just 

 that portion of the tip is missing which contains the scapular 

 branches ; it is probable, however, from the longitudinal character 

 of the apical externomedian offshoots that the species more closely 

 resembles P. chrysea than P. intermixta. All the mediastinal 

 branches art: simple, parallel, equidistant, almost straight, closely 

 crowded, and part from the main stem at an angle of about 45°. 

 The externomedian branches, the only others preserved, part at a 

 less angle, gradually become quite horizontal apically, are nearly 



