Tue CRANE-FLIES OF NEw York — Part I 861 
strong fusions at these places. The more specialized forms have an 
unusually strong series of cross-veins and deflections running trans- 
versely or obliquely across the wing at about two-thirds its length and 
generally in line with the ending of the radial sector and the inner end 
of the cell 7st M:, (discal). This strong fusion is called the cord, and 
a glance at almost any wing will enable one to pick it out immediately. 
The genus Pedicia (Plate XLII, 175) has the elements of the cord in almost 
perfect almement, but very oblique, and here the principal parts entering 
in are the basal deflection of Cw, the basal deflection of M,+., and the 
r-m cross-vein; in most crane-flies the deflection of Ri+; adds another 
strong element to the cord, while in many genera (as Antocha, Plate 
XXXIII, 48, and Teucholabis, Plate XX XIII, 52 and 53) the radial cross- 
vein is so placed as to become still another strong element. Very often 
the radial sector enters in as the part nearest to the main radial vein 
(R:), and here the stress falls either on the sector or on R2+3, or on 
both. As has been pointed out by Needham, in many species the closed 
cell of the wing (/st M2) is swung directly across the path of the cord, 
interrupting it like a ring on a line; the medial cross-vein and the outer 
deflection of M3 are quite necessary to complete this ring, and they are 
always present in such cases. It is only when the imner end of the 
closed cell gets into alinement with the other elements of the cord, so 
that the ring formed by the cell is no longer needed to strengthen the wing 
disk, that the medial cross-vein ts lost by atrophy. 
The longitudinal veins.— There are six or seven longitudinal veins, 
named, respectively, from the front margin backward, the costa, the 
subcosta, the radius, the media, the cubitus, and the anal veins. 
The costa (C, fig. 128, a) forms the anterior margin of the wing. It is 
usually much thickened, but thins out before reaching the wing apex. 
It is strongly united with the vein beneath it, the subcosta, by the humeral 
cross-vein at the base of the wing. More distally other veins end in the 
costa, such as Sq, Ri, and usually other elements of the radial field. 
The subcosta (Sc, fig. 128, a), a weak vein lying between the costa and 
the radius, is often difficult to detect due to foldings and flexings of this 
part of the wing. In generalized forms it is forked, the anterior branch, 
Sc, going to the costa, and the posterior branch, Sc (the subcostal cross- 
vein of the older authors), connecting with R:. In the subfamily 
Limnobiinae, Sc; is usually present, and Sc may be close to its tip as in 
