— 98 — 



and, furtliermoi'e, that one or occasioiiallj- two others are simi- 

 larly situated beneath the rear part of the wing base behind the 

 pleural wing process. The present writer has, thei-efore, made the 

 term « paraptera » cover this whole row of little plates, distin- 

 guishing those before and those behind the pleural wing process 

 by the designations given above. 



Ill tlic latter part of Audouin's definition it would seem that 

 he may have confused the I'udimentary tegula as it exists in so- 

 me insects with the parapterum, but even this is not probable 

 since he says it is always connected with the episternum, which 

 is never true of the tegula. In his description of the thorax of 

 beetles, Di/fiscns, Carabus, Bupresti^ and Curcidio, it is evident 

 that he regards the anterior upper part of the episternum as the 

 parapterum fused with the latter plate »... « While Audouin is 

 undoubtedly mistaken in this homology, especially in the me- 

 sothorax, he at least shows that his « paraptère » is a part 

 of the pleurum. Hence modern writers such as Packard and 

 Folsom, who make the term « paraptera > synonymous with « te- 

 gulae » are certainly wrong. The tegula is a dorsal scale or its 

 rudiment at the humeral angle of the wing, while the parapte- 

 rum is a co-existent sclerite below this part of the wing base. 

 The present writei' agrees with Comstock and Kellogg, who, in 

 their Elements of Insect Anatomy (first edition), dehne the little 

 sclerite in front of the base of the wing in the locust, articulated 

 to the dorsal extremity of the episternum, as the « parapteron » 

 though in this insect there are here really two of these parapteral 

 plates instead of one ». 



II dubbio che Audouin abbia confuso nella seconda parte 

 della sua descrizione sotto il nome di paratteri gii ipotteri con le 

 tegule è perfettamente giustificato. È evidente però che allo Snod- 

 grass sono sfuggite le note annesse alla traduzione fatta da Au- 

 douin negli Annali di Scienze Naturali del lavoro di llac Leay (IW), 

 nelle quali egli dichiara esplicitamente di considerare per parat- 

 teri nient' altro che le tegule. Snodgrass adunque inteipreta per 

 paratteri i minuti scleriti che, in numero vario (da 1 a 4), si 

 trovano avanti e dietro il processo alare mesopleurale (2tì5, ,P, 

 ,P, 3P, ,P, della fig. 4). 



Mac Leay (11*4, pag. 122, 135, 141, ecc.), forse disorientato 

 dall' ambiguità dell' esposizione di Audouin, ingarbuglia strana- 



