292 MODERN CLASSIFICATION OF INSECTS. 
sisting of a very small, collar-like prothorax and mesothorax, and 
an immense metathorax; this structure corresponding, as we shall 
see, with the slight development of the anterior, and the dispro- 
portionately large size of the posterior wings (fig. 93. 6. represents a 
lateral view of the body of Stylops Childrenii with the head and 
wings removed). On carefully removing the prothorax, it is found 
to consist of a simple ring or collar (fig. 93. 7. dotted), to which the 
fore legs are attached on the under side. The mesothorax (fig. 
93. 8.) is nearly similar, and scarcely of larger size, having the meso- 
thoracic legs on its under side. It is moreover furnished with a pair 
of small singular appendages, which have been the subject of great 
controversy. These organs have been termed prébalanciers*, pra- 
halteres, pseudhalteres, pseudelytra, or anterior wings (fig. 94. 5. 
pseudelytron of Elenchus, 94. 13. ditto of Xenos). They are nar- 
row, elongated, curved, and channelled processes, thickened at the 
tips, originating close to the anterior and lateral edge of the meso- 
thorax, and so nearly to the fore legs, that F. Bauer, who executed 
the drawings of the dissections for Mr. Kirby’s memoir (Zinn. Trans. 
vol. xi. tab. 9.), figured them as connected together by a very minute 
membrane. If such were actually the case, these organs would of 
course be prothoracic, and not representatives of the mesothoracic or 
fore wings; and hence Latreille rejected the name Strepsiptera (pro- 
posed for the order by Mr. Kirby, on the supposition that they were 
representations of the fore wings, although contrary to Bauer's views). 
More recent observations have, however, demonstrated that these or- 
gans are attached to the mesothoraxt, and are consequently analogous 
* In the seventeenth number of the Zoological Journal, the pseudelytra and 
prébalanciers are erroneously spoken of as distinct organs. 
+ Latreille, Annal. Génér. des Scienc. Physiq. p. 6. fig. 18. 8. ; Curtis, pl. 226. fig. K. ; 
Griffith, Anim. King. Ins. pl. 59.; Westw. M. N. H. May, 1832. Macleay (Hore Ent. 
423.*), although considering these appendages as prothoracic, insists on the propriety 
of Kirby’s name, because it is admitted that they are twisted, and that they are used 
in flight. The names of the orders of insects being, however, founded upon the 
mesothoracic and metathoracie alary appendages, such a nomenclature would be 
untenable. As it is, these organs are mesothoracic, and therefore real wings; and 
thus Kirby’s name is correct. Mr. MacLeay has subsequently adopted the opinion 
that the pseudhalteres are true elytra, and that ‘consequently the only wings the 
insect possesses are the under wings, the paraptera of which are enormously deve- 
loped, as well as the epimera of the metathorax ;” adding, however, the remark, 
** The insect, in fact, ceases to be so very extraordinaay.” (Zool. Journ. No. 18. 
p. 176.) 
