324 SAMUEL II. SCUDDEK ON THE 



JEphemerites Riickerti (Ieinitz, Jahrb. f. Miner., 1805, 385, pi. 2, f. 1 ; Lower Dyas, 

 Reitsch, Saxony. 



Palingenia Feistmantelii Fritsch, Beitr. Pal. Oesterr.-Ung. ii. pi. 1, f. 1-6; Carboniferous. 



Bohemia. 



Although one can hardly doubt the position of this insect, the resemblance of the 

 abdominal appendages to those of Dictyoneura Goldenbergi Brongn., as shown in a sketch 

 kindly seni me by Brongniart, is very striking. 



Homothetidae Scudder. 



Though one of the characters upon which this group was originally founded has proved 

 to be fallacious, so as to require an entire revision of the neuration of the single insect upon 

 which it was founded, the name may still be applied to the otherwise unnamed group into 

 which I have since discovered that it must fall, as I have proposed in a recent publication. 1 



In this group, which contains a considerable variety of forms, the mediastinal vein ter- 

 minates on the costa at very varying distances from the tip, being sometimes very brief 

 (Cheliphlebia), at other times very long (Homothetus), almost invariably sending a con- 

 siderable number of short, oblique, usually simple veins to the margin. The scapular vein, 

 which has no inferior branches, generally runs parallel to, but at no great distance from, 

 the mediastinal, and after passing its limits, which it generally does to a conspicuous 

 degree, continues the emission of branches to the margin now dropped by the mediastinal ; 

 this vein seems invariably to terminate just before the tip of the wing. The externo. 

 median vein is generally the principal branched vein, though there is a curious exception in 

 Didymophleps. It generally begins to branch about or a little- before the middle of the 

 wina-, and then emits from its main stem at regular intervals from three to six oblique ner- 

 vules, simple or simply forked, and so longitudinal in course that the area rarely infringes 

 far on the inner margin. The internomedian vein is also conspicuously branched, the area 

 generally occupying the larger part of the lower margin, though the anal area not 

 infrequently reaches nearly to the middle of the wing ; its mode of branching is very 

 variable ; generally it closely resembles the preceding vein, sometimes to such a degree as 

 to make all the offshoots appear as branches of one vein, at other times only beginning to 

 part from the stem after the latter has taken the oblique course of the externomedian 

 branches, and then having a different obliquity. The anal area is generally though not 

 always narrow, but often reaches far out toward the middle of the wing, and the vein is 

 abundantly branched. 



This family is readily distinguished from the Palaeopterina, to which it seems most 

 nearly allied, by the course of the mediastinal vein, which terminates on the costa and not 

 on the scapular vein. The externomedian area is also almost always more extensive, and 

 its veins less longitudinal, by which the internomedian area extends to the end of the lower 

 margin of the wing. It would be hard to say to what modern family of Neuroptera it was 

 most nearly allied, as its scapular vein is completely simple, but the general aspect of the 

 neuration leads one to consider it more nearly allied to the neuropterous than the pseudo- 

 neuropterous groups. 



1 Earliest winged ii^. Anier., p. 5, 6. 



