of the Strepsiptera. 55 



Neuroptera fly with both pairs of wings, the Coleoptera only 

 with the hinder ones. 



The placing of the Strepsiptera with either the Coleoptera or 

 the Neuroptera therefore depends, in the first place, upon the 

 questions whether their anterior wings are membranous or 

 horny, and whether both pairs of wings, or only the posterior 

 pair, are used in flight. Of the prothorax, which is very rudi- 

 mentary in the Strepsiptera, we may for a time take no notice, 

 as, according to the above diagnoses, it is free in both the 

 Neuroptera and Coleoptera. 



According to page 78 of the Handbook, the fore wings of the 

 Strepsiptera are " in the form of small stumps, rolled up at the 

 apex." Are these membranous fore wings ? Are these organs 

 that take part in flight ? Any comparison of these stumps with 

 the membranous veined anterior wings of the Neuroptera is 

 quite untenable, because in the orders with two pairs of mem- 

 branous wings, both assisting in flight (Neuroptera, Hymeno- 

 ptera, Lepidoptera), the anterior wings are never aborted alone, 

 and, from the preponderant importance of those organs for the 

 purpose of flight, cannot be aborted. In these orders both pairs 

 of wings are sometimes aborted (as in Boreus among the Neuro- 

 ptera), but the function of flight is never transferred entirely to 

 the posterior wings. 



But the anterior wings of the Strepsiptera, during the life of 

 these animals, are by no means twisted stumps; and this is 

 expressly insisted on by Smith, who has had the opportunity of 

 observing them alive* : from the delicacy of the insect, they 

 change their form very quickly after death ; and their condition 

 in dried specimens consequently enables us to form no opinion 

 of their nature during life. The passage in Smith's paper 

 (Trans. Ent. Soc. ser. 2, vol. iv. p. 116) is as follows: — 



" The texture of all parts of the body of a male Stylops is of 

 so delicate a nature that within two hours after death the entire 

 appearance of the insect is changed, bearing no more resem- 

 blance to the living creature than a shrivelled mummy does to 

 the once graceful Egyptian ; the remarkable lateral appendages 

 of the thorax" (elsewhere denominated pseudelytra) , "which in 

 life were rounded on one side and flattened on the other, become 

 entirely changed in form." 



In Smith's figure, drawn from the life, the anterior wing of 

 Stylops shows the most unmistakeable analogy with the stunted, 

 widely separated, and gaping elytra of the Coleopterous genera 

 Symbius and Atractocerus (to which even Westwood called at- 



* The extraordinary rarity of the Strepsiptera, and the shortness of their 

 life, which extends only to a few hours, have allowed them to be observed 

 in the living state by only a few entomologists. 



