52 Journal of Entomclogy and Zoology 
and adults) and other lowly organized insects, and their retention in the Coleoptera 
must therefore be regarded as a very primitive feature. As I have pointed out in 
several papers, the cerci of such larval Coleoptera as Galerita janus Fab., are re- 
markably similar to those of such nymphal Dermaptera as Diflatys severa and Kar- 
schiella even in regard to such minute details as the relative size of the individual 
segments, ete.; and the paraprocts (lateral plates near anal opening) and genitalia 
of the Coleoptera could readily be derived from the Dermapteron type. 
It has been argued that such Coleoptera as the Staphylinide, which have retained 
a body-form strongly resembling that of certain Dermaptera, are highly specialized 
in many respects. This however has no bearing on the structural resemblance of 
certain Lampyroid Coleoptera (which are very primitive in their general makeup) to 
certain Dermapters, and it by no means disproves the contention that the Staphylinide 
have retained a primitive body form, despite the presence in some of them of rather 
highly specialized characters. Every student of evolution and comparative anatomy 
knows full well that animals which are very primitive in some respects may 
have developed certain other characters to a rather high degree of specialization, and 
on this account, we have to take the composite primitive characters (gleaned from 
many sources) of a group in order to arrive at a correct conclusion concerning the 
nature of the forms ancestral to that group; and what may be termed the “fore- 
runners” of these composite primitive characters are to be sought among the more 
primitive representatives of the superorder of which the group in question is a mem- 
ber. On this account, we must examine not only the Dermaptera, but also the Embiids 
and Plecoptera in order to ascertain the probable origin of the ancestral features found 
in the Coleoptera, although some one group, such as the Dermaptera, would naturally 
be expected to retain more of these ancestral features than the others have done. 
It must be borne in mind that beth the Psocide (sensu Jato) and the Neuroptera 
were probably descended from Plecoptera-life forebears, and therefore it is merely to 
be expected that similar characters would be carried over into both the Dermaptero- 
Coleopteron lines of descent and the Psocid-Neuropteron lines of descent. The char- 
acters which they all have in common would therefore be inherited from their com- 
mon ancestral stock (related to the Plecoptera), and would merely indicate that 
Coleoptera, Psocide and Neuroptera are to be traced back to more _ primitive 
common ancestors (resembling Plecoptera) rather than that Coleoptera are descended 
from the rather highly developed Psocide, or even from the Neuroptera. Further- 
more, the Blattide, Grylloblattide and their relatives, are very probably ultimately 
descended from forms not unlike the ancestors of the Plecoptera, and since they have 
remained very primitive in many respects, it is not surprising that they too exhibit 
certain features suggesting a condition ancestral to the Coleoptera and Dermaptera; 
but the closest affinities of the Dermaptera are with the Embiids and Plecoptera, and 
the closest affinities of the Coleoptera are with the Dermaptera and their allies, so 
that we are justified in assuming that the nearest living representative of the immedi- 
ate ancestors of the Coleoptera are the Dermaptera, which are more primitive 
structurally than the Coleoptera, and have therefore departed less than they from the 
ancestral condition. 
It has been argued that the known fossil remains of the Dermaptera are not as 
cld geologically, as the first Coleoptera to appear, and on this account the Coleoptera 
cannot be derived from Dermaptera-like forebears. In this connection, however, I 
would simply call to mind the fact that formerly it was contended that the anatom- 
