117 



when, so far as one can jndge ironi the rather doubtful data at 

 hand, the Carboniferous was decidedly nearer to our times than 

 it was to the Cambrian, which of course was not nearly "the 

 dawn of life." The world was already becoming middle-aged, 

 or at least had lost the freshness of youth, when Prosholc and 

 Scytinoptera were living. 



The status of Eugereon is quite another matter. 



Handlirsch gives four photographs of this insect in situ, and 

 some restorations, but Dohrn's figures (1866, Palaeontogr. 

 XIIL, PI. 41) seem much more like the photographs than do 

 Handlirsch's restorations. 



What the insect really is I am not pre prepared to say, l)ut T 

 am quite convinced that it is not, in any sense of the word, a 

 Hemipteron. 



The characters Handlirsch gives are: an enormously long 

 labrum, quite unlike anything known now, a pair of unjointed 

 mandibular setse, a pair of 5-6-3ointed appendages which Hand- 

 lirsch declares to be the equivalent of the labium (rostrum), and 

 a pair of unjointed maxillary seta^ (which other authors take for 

 antennse). 



After a very careful study of the drawings, j^hotographs and 

 restorations, I cannot admit that Handlirsch's interpretation is 

 correct, nor that we have here a Hemipterous, nor even a Hemip- 

 teroid insect. I think that Eugereon is a I^europteroid insect of 

 a kind that has no representatives in modern times, that has 

 become extinct, forming an Order or Suborder of its own. 



In his interpretations of some of the Mesozoic Insects, I do 

 not think that Handlirsch is much happier. 



DysmorphoptiJa might be anything!; Archegocimex cannot 

 be placed near the "Pentatomidre" (Cimicidse), for the clavus 

 is very broad apically, the posterior margin of the scutellum be- 

 ing remote from the basal angle of the membrane, a condition 

 never found in the Cimicidte ; the same remarks apply to Pro- 

 gonocimex. Of the rest I will only say that in my opinion Hand- 

 lirsch has made a number of families on no characters at all, 

 these families being superfluous. 



In the Homoptera, Procercopis is very likely an Issine (as 

 regards alutacea, which may not be congeneric with the others). 



Turning to Handlirsch's "trees" of the modern families, I 

 do not think that he is any nearer the truth. He seems to me to 



