NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 61 



NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 



The Order Neuroptera. — It would be of much interest to 

 myself and some other entomologists in New Zealand if a brief state- 

 ment were made through the pages of the ' Entomologist ' as to what 

 extent the breaking up of the old Order Neuroptera into a number of 

 new Orders is generally approved by British entomologists. In the 

 ' Cambridge Natural History ' the Order Neuroptera is dealt with in 

 the broad sense, and is subdivided into families in accordance with 

 the system followed by most of the older entomologists. Eecently, 

 however, attempts have been made to raise most of these families to 

 ordinal status and to give them new names. Eor example, we find 

 the Perlidae spoken of as the Order Perlaria ; the Ephemeridae as the 

 Order Plectoptera ; the Sialidae as the Order Megaloptera ; the 

 Panorpidae as the Order Mecoptera, and so on. The Phryganidae have 

 of course long been regarded by many writers as a distinct order, 

 the Trichoptera and the Dragonflies as another Order — the Odonata, 

 although even in these cases opinion does not appear to be by any 

 means unanimous. It is almost impossible for workers out here to 

 discriminate between the views of one or two special students and 

 those of entomologists in general, and hence some authoritative 

 statement on the questions I have raised would be very welcome. 

 Incidentally, I gather from the writings of Mr. Lucas in your pages 

 that the old Order Neuroptera has not been entirely abandoned, and 

 also that the old family designations appertaining thereto are still in 

 current use amongst British entomologists. — G. V. Hudson ; Welling- 

 ton, New Zealand. 



[In vol. xlii, 1909, will be found an article by Dr. D. Sharp, giving 

 a scientific scheme of the natural orders of insects, and since that 

 time it has been the one employed by the ' Entomologist ' in its 

 index, etc. In this scheme the heterogeneous Neuroptera of Linnaeus 

 is broken up into its natural divisions. This scheme is in the main 

 that proposed by Dr. Shipley in ' Zool. Anz.,' xxviii, 1904, and, as it 

 is made use of in Prof. Sedgwick's ' Text-book of Zoology,' vol. iii, 

 1909, it has practically the sanction of Cambridge biologists. Dr. 

 Sharp, we know, would like to amend the list of Orders in His 

 ' Insecta ' if only the publishers would produce a new edition. Since 

 1909 Mr. Lucas has always used the term Neuroptera in its restricted 

 sense, and we would very much like all our contributors to do the 

 same. We append the list of Orders : 

 Apterygota : 



Protura \ 



Collembola I Wingless insects supposed to have descended 



Campodeioidea [ from wingless ancestors. 



Thysanura j 



Anapterygota : 



Mallophaga \ wiagless insects whose ancestors were probably 

 Anoplura & winged. 



Siphonaptera J 



