62 H. WOODWARD ON AN ORTHOPTEROTJS INSECT 



Of the body we see but little ; a transverse band marks the pro- 

 bable division between the meso- and metathorax ; and from the 

 undisturbed position of the bases of the four wings we may conclude 

 that the insect was not less than five lines in breadth across the 

 thorax. 



Immediately in front of the wings, and evidently in situ, is the 

 prothorax, consisting of two dilated and rounded lobes, veined like 

 the wings themselves, but rather more irregularly, and measuring 

 14 lines across and 6 lines in length. In the centre of these two 

 rounded lobes, and extending 8 lines in advance of them, is what 

 appears to be a slender frontal process, 3 lines long, behind which is 

 the small head with its eyes, measuring 3 lines in breadth. In 

 front and from one side of the prothorax, oue leg is seen remaining 

 in situ. 



Compared with the ordinary Neuroptera, and even with Dr. 

 Dohrn's Eugereon BoecVmgii, we see that in the neuration of the 

 wings there is a marked distinction ; for whereas the cross veins in 

 our fossil run nearly always at right angles to the longitudinal veins, 

 leaving more or less quadrangular meshes, the wings in Eugereon 

 and many other Netjroptera have the interspaces between the veins 

 filled by polygonal meshes, especially in the hinder part of the wings. 

 Nor does the arrangement of the main veins correspond. 



Compared with modern Orthoptera, we find that in the fossil 

 there is a tendency to greater branching of the large longitudinal 

 veins, and a more frequent branching of the transverse veinlets that 

 brace them together ; and that there is a less parallel disposition of 

 the former. 



Between this form and Corydalis {Gryllacris) Brongniarti (PI. IX. 

 fig. 2), from the Coal-measures, Coalbrook Dale, there is a marked 

 similarity. 



Having corresponded with Prof. J. 0. Westwood, of Oxford, and 

 also communicated with my esteemed colleague Charles 0. Water- 

 house, Esq., of the Zoological Department, I am confirmed by both 

 these entomologists and also by R. McLachlan, Esq., E.L.S., in re- 

 ferring this remarkable fossil to the neighbourhood of the Mantid^:. 

 In no other group do we meet with such a dilatation of the pro- 

 thorax ; and although the frontal process seems at first sight ab- 

 normal, nevertheless I find it, combined with the pro thoracic 

 dilatations, in the genus Blepliaris, and notably in B. domina, from 

 the White Nile. There is also a general agreement in the neura- 

 tion of the wings, which leads me to rest satisfied in this deter- 

 mination. Nevertheless there are points of affinity with the Neu- 

 roptera which mark this insect, and which led Audouin to refer the 

 Coalbrook-dale example to Corydalis, although Mr. A. H. Swinton 

 has subsequently referred it to Gryllacris*. 



One great distinction between Blepharis domina and the fossil 

 under consideration is, that in the latter the dilatations of the pro- 

 thorax are tumid and rounded, whilst in the former they are per- 

 fectly flat and subtriangular. 



* Greol. Mag. loc. cit. 



