42 8 ' NEUROPTERA 



CHAP. XVIII 



have been found as far back as the Lower Lias ; their remains 

 are said to exist in considerable variety in the strata of that 

 epoch, and some of them to testify to the existence at that period 

 of dragon-flies as highly specialised as those now living. Accord- 

 ing to Hagen ^ Platephemera antiqua and Gerephemera simplex, 

 two Devonian fossils, may be considered as dragon-flies ; the 

 evidence as to this appears inadequate, and Brongniart refers the 

 latter Insect to the family Platypterides, and considers Plate- 

 phemera to be more allied to the may-flies. 



One of the most remarkable of the numerous discoveries lately 

 made in fossil entomology is the finding of remains of huge Insects, 

 evidently allied to dragon-flies, in the Carboniferous strata at Com- 

 mentry. Brongniart calls these Insects Protodonates,^ and looks on 

 them as the precursors of our Odonata. Meganeura monyi was 

 the largest of these Insects, and measured over two feet across the 

 expanded wings. If M. Brongniart be correct in his restoration 

 of this giant of the Insect world, it much resembled our existing 

 dragon-flies, but had a simple structure of the thoracic segments, 

 and a simpler system of wing-nervures. On p. 276 we figured 

 Titanophasma fayoli, considered by Scudder and Brongniart as 

 allied to the family Phasmidae, and we pointed out that this 

 supposed alliance must at best have been very remote. This view 

 is now taken by M. Brongniart himself,^ he having removed the 

 Insect from the Protophasmides to locate it in the Protodonates 

 near Meganeura. There appears to be some doubt whether the 

 wings supposed to belong to this specimen were really such, or 

 belonged rather to some other species. 



^ Bull. Mus. Harvard, viii. 1880-81, p. 276. 

 2 Inscdcs fossilcs, p. 394. '^ Insedcs/ossiles, p.. 396. 



