IIEXAPOD INSECTS OF GEEAT BRITAIN. 219 



Dr. Henry Woodward. The specimen before me represents the upper surface of a left wing, 

 or else the reverse of the lower surface of a right wing. 



The exact position of a fragment as small (proportionally speaking) as this would seem 

 to be indeterminable at first sight ; and so indeed it would be, were there not other forms 

 living at that time, belonging to a group from which this cannot be separated by anything 

 in the structure of the base of the wing ; and yet, as it differs strikingly, from all of them 

 in certain features, and from its immense size can be confounded with none, it merits dis- 

 tinct mention and a name. All of the principal veins are present, and from their trend and 

 relative level, and from the width and nature of the interspaces, there can be no question 

 that the insect belongs to the same group as the only other heretofore known neuropte- 

 rous wings found in Great Britain, viz., Corydalis Brongniarti Mantell and Lithomantis car- 

 bonarius Woodward, and is only to be separated generically from them. Its proper position 

 can therefore best be determined after the structure of those wings has been discussed, — 

 a point to which we will now direct our attention. 



Dr. Woodward is assuredly mistaken in referring Lithomantis to " the neighborhood of 

 the Mantidae," notwithstanding that he supports himself b}' the adherence to his views of 

 such able entomologists as Messrs. Westwood, Waterhouse and M'Lachlan, who can hardly 

 have made a serious study of the neuration. It bears indeed a vague resemblance to that 

 of the Mantidae, excepting in the hind wings, where the fullness of the anal area, with its 

 special development of folding rays in the insect of to-day, need not be looked for in its 

 less specialized ancestor ; but when the elements of the neuration are examined, the 

 resemblance is seen to be purely superficial. Then it appears that Lithomantis agrees 

 with other ancient types, and not at all with the MantidaB. The front wing of the Man- 

 tidae has a very peculiar and characteristic neuration. The marginal vein forms the front 

 border of the wing, as I believe it never does in any saltatorial Orthoptera, and always does 

 in the Neui'optera. The mediastinal vein is simple, and runs in close proximity to the 

 scapular, terminating near the tip of the wing. So far there is nothing essentially differ- 

 ent from the condition of things in Lithomantis ; but in the next three veins all is different. 

 To use the specific example (Blepharis domina of Africa) given by Mr. Woodward : the 

 scapular vein is perfectly simple as far as the extreme tip, when it divides into three very 

 short nervules supporting the apical margin. In Lithomantis, however, it emits a stout 

 inferior branch near the middle of the wing, which runs parallel or nearly parallel to the 

 main vein, and probably (if it is like its allies of the time) sends off several branches to 

 the lower apical margin. As this is one of the principal veins of the wing, differences 

 which occur here are significant, and there is hardly any group of insects which has so 

 unimportant a scapular vein as the Mantidae. The differences are e'ven more striking in 

 the next tw" veins, better preserved in the fossil. In Blepharis (and it is much the same 

 in all Mantidae) the externomedian vein is divided at base into two main stems, the upper 

 of which runs in close proximity to the scapular, and in the outer half of the wing sends 

 downward three or four conspicuous oblique veins, which appear at first glance precisely 

 as if they were offshoots of the scapular, which they are not at all ; they only perform 

 the office of such offshoots in other wings ; the lower branch takes an irregularly longi- 

 tudinal course below the upper branch, and emits similar veinlets to the lower margin ; 

 and the entire area occupied by the two branches of this vein and their offshoots covers 



