152 



two suborders to each other, probably for the reason, as Need- 

 ham himself has expressed it (1903, page 758), of not making 

 " any suggestion that might hinder future studies." 



Van der Weele (1906), accepting Brongniart's Proto- 

 donata as the ancestral forms of the Odonata, recognised the 

 living PalcBOphlehia Selys/ of Japan, as the continuation of the 

 Protodonata, and from the Palaeophlebiidae, as a starting-point, 

 derived the Zygoptera on the one hand, the Anisoptera on the 

 other. 



Handlirsch (1906-1908) created the term Anisozygoptera to 

 include the living Epiophlehia, a number of Mesozoic and fewer 

 Tertiary forms, placed it as equivalent to the Zygoptera and 

 Anisoptera, and, like van der Weele, regarded it as ancestral 

 to these latter two. A fourth suborder, Archi-Zygoptera, was 

 also proposed for a single genus, the Mesozoic Protomyrmeleon 

 Geinitz. 



The Anisozygoptera present a combination of characters 

 some of which are characteristic of the Zygoptera, such as the 

 quadrilateral, others of the Anisoptera, as the greater breadth 

 of the hind-wings in comparison with the anterior pair. 



The great Belgian master, Edmond de Selys-Longchamps, 

 died December nth, 1900, His wonderfully rich collection of 

 Odonata has been placed in the Museum of Natural History at 

 Brussels by the far-sighted wisdom and generosity of his sons, 

 Baron Walther and the late Baron Raphael de Selys-Long- 

 champs. In pursuance of the wishes of their father, they 

 authorised the publication of a Catalogue Systématique et De- 

 scriptif des Collections Zoologiques du Baron Edmond de Selys- 

 Longchamps. This is much more than a catalogue, many of its 

 fascicules being elaborately and beautifully illustrated mono- 

 graphs of the groups of which they treat. 



We are concerned at present only with those fascicules deal- 

 ing with the Odonata. These comprise, as far as published, one 



1 Calvert, in a review (£n/. News, xiv., p. 208, June, 1903) of Need- 

 ham's Genealogie Study, pointed out that Selys's name Palœophlebia was 

 preoccupied by Palœophlebia Brauer, and suggested Epiophlebia to re- 

 place Selys's name. Three years later, Handlirsch, in Die Fossilen 

 Insekten, proposed the term Neopalœophlebia for Palœophlebia Selys, 

 but both names must fall as synonyms of Epiophlebia. 



