70 ENTOMOLOGICAI, NEWS [Mar., '19 



tive 'Xocustids" may indicate that his view is the correct one ; 

 but, since the GrylHd and "Locustid" Hnes of descent very 

 quickly merge in a common ancestry, in tracing them back to 

 the common stem forms from which the saltatorial Orthoptera 

 arose, it is rather difficult to say which of the two lines is the 

 more closely related to Grylloblatta, and until all of the avail- 

 able evidence has been brought forward, it is preferable to 

 suspend judgment in the matter. 



I have maintained that the line of development of the 

 Acrididae is closer than that of the Locustid-gryllid group to 

 the Phasmid line of development (of which the Phylliidae are 

 an offshoot), and the recent work of Turner, 1916, on the 

 breeding habits of the Orthoptera (Vol. 9, page 117, of the 

 Annals of the Ent. Soc. of America) would seem to support 

 this view. Handlirsch considers that the Phasmids are con- 

 nected by the fossil Chresmodidae with the fossil Elcanid fore- 

 bears of the Tridactylids ; but I do not think that such highly 

 specialized Orthopteroid insects as the Elcanidae and their 

 saltatorial allies can be regarded as ancestral to the much more 

 primitive Phasmid Timcma, whose structural features clearly 

 point to a Panplecopterous ancestry; and the relationship of 

 the lines of descent of these insects as shown in the diagram 

 is more in harmony with the evidence of comparative anatomy. 

 So far as I can judge from the description of these insects, 

 the fossil Elcanidae, Locustopsidae and Chresmodidae should 

 doubtless be included in the superorder Panorthoptera, of 

 which the Phasmidae, Acrididae, "Locustidae," Gryllidae, Gryl- 

 loblattidae and their allies, form a part. The Thysanoptera, 

 which Handlirsch would group with these insects, seem to 

 have closer affinities with the insects descended from Psocid- 

 like forebears (superorder Panhomoptera), and the Dermap- 

 tera (including the Hemimeridae or ''Diploglossata," which 

 are true Dermaptera and are not a distinct branch of the 

 Gryllid stock as Handlirsch seems to think) are undoubtedly 

 more closely related to the other members of the superorder 

 Panplecoptera, instead of being more closely related to the 

 Gryllid stock, as Handlirsch would have us believe. 



