March, 1916.] CrAMPTON : OrIGIN OF WiNGS. 21 



21. As to the argument that the wings could not have acquired an 

 articulation with the tergal region, save through first becoming a 

 tracheal gill (the tracheal gills have already acquired such an articu- 

 lation), I fail to see the logic of such reasoning. 



If an expansion of the integument can acquire an articulation 

 with the body when it develops into a tracheal gill in the water, why 

 can not a similar expansion acquire an articulation with the tergum 

 when it becomes a wing in the air? It is surely no harder to con- 

 ceive of a rigid outgrowth becoming an articulated appendage in the 

 air, than to conceive of a similar rigid outgrowth becoming an artic- 

 ulated appendage in the water ! When the forming wing of a Blattid 

 develops from an immovable outgrowth near the tergal region, it 

 does not first become a gill before acquiring an articulation with the 

 tergum, and if this can take place during the ontogenetic develop- 

 ment of the insect, why can it not occur in the phylogenetic develop- 

 ment of the race ? 



Furthermore, in the series of Acarina, described in point 14, these 

 forms have acquired appendages articulated with the dorsal region, 

 without having these appendages pass through a tracheal gill stage 

 in either ontogenetic or phylogenetic development, and if such an 

 articulation can occur in the air, in such forms, why can it not occur 

 in the wings also, without their first passing through a tracheal gill 

 stage ? 



On page 242 of his " Cours d'Entomologie," Latreille, 1831, has 

 described a Coleopteron Acrocimis lougimanus, whose prothorax 

 bears articulated lateral processes (teste Cholodkowsky, 1886). If 

 these can become articulated to the prothorax without first passing 

 through a tracheal gill stage, why can the wings not do the same? 

 To demand that the wings must pass through a tracheal gill stage in 

 order to become articulated to the tergum, is asking far more than 

 the facts would warrant, and in the light of the foregoing instances, 

 this objection to the origin of the wings from paranota, is not valid. 



In a footnote to page 360, Walton, 1901, makes the following 

 statement. " The prothoracic appendages of certain fossil insects 

 (Homoioptera zvoodzvardi, Stenodicta lobata, Lithomantis golden- 

 hergi, carbonaria, etc.) so excellently figured by Brongniard (1894) 

 cannot be homologized with the expanded margin of the prothorax 

 in exsting Mantid?e, as Woodward, 1879, suggested. Brongniart, 



