V^ol. XXX] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 47- 



optera, Trichoptera, Lepidoptera, and such fossil forms as the 

 Protomecoptera, etc.). The relationships of these other forms, 

 however, have no bearing- on the ancestry of the Orthoptera, 

 and need not be further considered here. 



In making a study of the ancestry of the Orthopteroid in- 

 sects, the condition found in such primitive representatives of 

 the group as the Grylloblattids and Phasmids is fully as instruc- 

 tive as the study of the fossil Orthoptera thus far described, 

 since these fossil forms appear to be in many respects even 

 more highly modified than the Grylloblattids, etc., and one can 

 make out practically nothing of their anatomical details from 

 figures of them, due no doubt to their poor state of preserva- 

 tion, yet in most cases it is just these structural details which 

 give us the clue to relationships and greatly simplify an other- 

 wise extremely difficult study. On this account I have given 

 more attention to the study of the interesting little insect 

 Grylloblatfa campodeiformis (described by Dr. E. M. Walker) 

 which is so to speak a ''living fossil" having preserved many 

 features occurring in the more primitive representatives of the 

 other lower groups of insects, and which appears to have de- 

 parted as little as any known form from the probable ances- 

 tral condition of the Orthoptera as a whole. No one insect, 

 however, has retained all of the ancestral features, and the 

 study of such primitive Phasmids as the interesting little in- 

 sect Timema calif ornica Scudder is no less important, since 

 it has preserved certain features which even Gryllohlatta has 

 lost. Unfortunately both of these insects are wingless ; but I 

 do not consider this a great handicap in such a study, since I 

 cannot help thinking that too great weight has been placed up- 

 on a phylogenetic study of the wing veins alone, and anyone 

 who will go into the matter at all deeply will soon become con- 

 vinced that it is only through an examination of a widely dif- 

 ferent series of structures from as many parts of the body as 

 possible, that we can come to an approximately correct con- 

 clusion in the matter of determining the relationships of the 

 diflferent orders of insects, so that it may perhaps be a good 

 idea to give the already overworked wing- venation a rest, and 

 take up the consideration of some other features as well 



