6 Mr. S. S. Saunders on 



I also possess a female of the allied genus Myodites, 

 to the body and legs of which fifteen hexapod larvaa, 

 differing from any hitherto met with, are firmly attached. 



On the other hand, it would seem difficult to conceive 

 how the Stylopidm can be considered by Dr. Gerstiicker 

 as a Family naturally associated by its essential characters 

 {" schliesst sich durch ihre wesentlichen Charaktere na- 

 turgemiiss") with the Neuroptera in general, and the 

 Fhryganeidce in particular (a) . 



Nothing, in fact, can be more dissimilar in their struc- 

 ture and adaptation than the stunted, leathery and vein- 

 less mesothoracical appendages (' Stummeln ') of the 

 former, as compared with the expansive membranous 

 corresponding organs of flight, with branching veins, 

 of the latter, unless exceptionally rudimentary in hotli 

 2jairs, as Dr. Schaum has pointed out {h) ; nor less so, 

 the remarkable characteristic differences in the antennfe, 

 which are long, setaceous (^borstenformig^) and multi- 

 articulate in the Fhryganeidce; while also utterly irre- 

 concilable in their aquatic habits, their peculiar self- 

 constructed larval abodes, their independent existence, 

 and entire series of transformations from ovum to imago. 



Little attention has hitherto been paid to the neuration 

 of the wings (c) in Strepsipterous insects; nor indeed has 

 much regard to accuracy been observed in the delinea- 

 tion thereof. In the figures of Xenos PecJdi by Bauer, in 

 1811 [d] , and of Xenos Rossii, K. {X. vesparum, Rossi) 

 as supplied by Jurine in 1816 [c) , the neuration essen- 

 tially diff'ers ; nor have any verbal explanations thereof 

 been afforded in either case. 



Curtis has supplied a description of the wings of his 

 Halictophagus (1832) ; but scarcely in an intelligible form, 

 without the aid of the figure itself to interpret his mean- 

 ing; while in his Stylops Dalii (1828) this character is 

 hardly noticed, and only indefinitely adverted to in his 

 Elenchus (1831). But although these wings are, in all 



(a) Haudbucli ; p. 79. 



{h) Wiegm. Ai-chiv. loc. cit., p. 147 



(c) I have applied to tlie veining of the wings throughout, the designa- 

 tion of "neuration," " neura,'^ &c. ; iu order to be consistent with the 

 references made herein to Kirhy's names for these veins, without alteration. 



(d) Linn. Trans, loc. cit., Tab. IX. fig. 1. 



(e) Memorie' della E. A. delle Scieuze di Torino, Tom. XXIII. p. 50, 

 1818. 



