8. IT. Scudder — New Carboniferous Insects. 299 



is widely distinct from Gryllacris, whicli, on its side, has a neuration 

 more widely allied to that of Neuroptera than, perhaps, any other 

 group of Neuroptera ; any comparison with other Ortlioptera would 

 therefore be still more vain, the neuration of the fossil wing bearing 

 so much closer resemblance to that of those groups to which 

 Audouin at first referred it. 



Compared even with Brodia, it will be seen that the essential 

 features of the neuration are the same, with the single exception of 

 the mediastinal vein, which in Brodia ends on the margin not far 

 from the middle of the wing ; while in this ancient " Corydalis " it 

 extends no doubt nearly or quite to the tip. But exactly such 

 a difference as this is found to-day between EapMdiidce and Sialidce, 

 and there can be little doubt that all four of the wings which have 

 now been discovered (comprising all the important fragments of 

 wings from the English Carboniferous rocks but one — a cockroach) 

 belong to an ancient type of Planipennian Neuroptera. 



Of these the two which are most nearly related to each other 

 are, unquestionably, the Corydalis Brongniarti of Mantell and the 

 Liihomantis carhonaria of Woodward. Indeed, the resemblance 

 between them is so close that one would almost consider them as 

 belonging to the same genus. The basal narrowness of the 

 margino-mediastinal interspace, however, as well as the con- 

 siderably greater importance of the internomedian area in Litho- 

 mantis, forbid this, though the course and general disposition of 

 every principal vein is nearly identicaL 



Corydalis Brongniarti, then, being generically distinct from its 

 synchronous allies, and widely different from living types, merits 

 a distinctive name, and may be termed LitJiosialis, to recall its 

 relationship to the forms to which Audouin first compared it. From 

 Lithomantis it differs in the points just mentioned ; from Brodia in 

 the basal breadth of the margino-mediastinal interspace, the much 

 more numerous branching of all the lower veins, and the greater 

 extent of the mediastinal, besides the more uniform breadth of the 

 whole wing ; from Archceoptilus, in the proportionally narrow area 

 occupied at the base of t^e wing by the upper two interspaces, and 

 the far later division of the externoraedian vein. 



Objection would perhaps be made by some to the retention of 

 Woodward's name of Lithomantis for an insect whose supposed 

 resemblance to the Mantidce is found to be erroneous, and which 

 does not even fall within the suborder to which the Mantidce belong ; 

 but, aside from the fact that it belonged to an age when the 

 characteristic features of Ortlioptera and Neuroptera were more or 

 less blended, its outward aspect is at first glance by no means very 

 different from the insect to which Woodward has compared it ; and 

 the retention of the name has an historic interest which should not be 

 disregarded ; the number of Paleeozoic insects is not, and is not 

 likely to become, so great as to render the name itself an obstacle to 

 a knowledge and easy recollection of its true affinities. 



The following list contains the British Carboniferous hexapod 

 insects discovered up to this time. 



