and the Genealogy of the Artliropoda. 449 



as belonging to an insect which must have been precisely in- 

 termediate between the Orthoptera and Neuroptera. Bj this 

 discovery and that of Eugereon, important and hitherto quite 

 unsuspected steps have been made towards the establishment 

 of the genealogical relationship of the order of Insects. 



As regards Eugereon^ in order to indicate the position which, 

 in my opinion, it must occupy in the genealogical tree, I will 

 here reproduce the concluding paragraph of my memoir in 

 the ' Palgeontographica.' 



" If we compare the organization of the recognizable parts 

 of our fossil with living forms of Insects, we arrive at the 

 surprising result that we have to do with an animal Avhich 

 will not enter into any of our orders of Insects liitherto re- 

 garded as so firmly established. Not only M. Tischbein, to 

 whose kind intervention I am indebted for the intellectual 

 possession of the animal, but also Dr. Hagen, of Konigsberg, 

 to whom I sent it for his* inspection and opinion, regarded it 

 as an Hemipteron, the latter, however, with this limitation : — 

 ' Probably it constitutes a perfectly new form, which, on ac- 

 count of the labium, scarcely agrees with the existing Hemi- 

 ptera, but can only be referred to them.' My own opinion was 

 originally the same ; but I am now decidedly of opinion that 

 I have an insect before me to which our divisions do not 

 apply, and which therefore stands outside our system. The 

 wings, especially, prevent my referring it to the Hemiptera. 

 No Hemipteron is destitute of the clavus on the anterior wings ; 

 and in none do the longitudinal veins show a tendency to attain 

 the inner margin, but all are directed towards the apex of the 

 wing. Moreover there are no Hemiptera with antennse re- 

 sembling those of Eugereon. The antennee of Hemiptera are 

 of several (/. e. 4r-5) joints, or, if we count all the small inter- 

 mediate joints {e.g. in Ectrichodia) ^ of 8-9 joints; but this 

 is the highest number. The form, however, of these joints is 

 essentially different from that of the antennal joints of Eu- 

 gereon. In the Hemiptera they are long, unequal, and here and 

 there furnished with dilatations or other alterations of form ; 

 in the latter small and all alike. To this we may add the 

 formation of the buccal organs. The rostrum of the Bugs 

 consists, as is well known, of a nearly closed multiarticulate 

 tube, in which the filiform mandibles and maxillae are freely 

 moveable. The tube consists of the labium amalgamated with 

 the labial palpi. In Eugereon we find all these elements pre- 

 sent, but very differently developed. The mandibles and max- 

 illaa are not filiform, nor does the labium form a tube. And 

 yet it is not difficult to regard this structure of the buccal 

 organs as a preliminary step towards the existing Hemipterous 



