12 SCUDDER ON THE DEVONIAN 



idae." I do not know by whom; certainly not by myself, who first described 

 them. Platephemera he says, may possibly belong to the Ephemeridae, " but there 

 is nothing in the figures to make this certain." The better figures published with 

 this should *he sufiicient proof that Platephemera belongs where I originally placed 

 it. The neuration agrees in all essential features with that family, and indeed, 

 considering the antiquity of the creature, shows marvellously little divergence froin existing 

 types. And although Mr. Eaton has nothing to say of the wing structure of the Ephem- 

 eridae as a whole, in distinction from that of other neuropterous families, I can hardly 

 believe that any one who has studied it from the standpoint of the substantial unity of 

 wing structure in all insects, could fail to discover that the Ephemeridae have a special 

 development of wing neuration distinct from all others, permitting formulation, and to 

 which Platephemera conforms to so close an extent, that until we have further light by the 

 discovery of more complete remains we are amply justified in considering it as an antique 

 type of Ephemeridae. 



IV. Geeephemeea simplex, pi. 1, figs. 8, 8a. 



Gerephemera simplex Scudd., Geol. mag., v, 174-75 (1868). 



Mentioned without name, as the fourth species, in my letter to Mr. Hartt : On the 

 devonian insects of New Brunswick, p. 1 ; Bailey, Obs. geol. south. New Br., 140 ; Amer. 

 journ. sc, (2) xxxix, 357 ; Can. nat., (n. s.) ii, 235 ; Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond., (3) ii, 117 — 

 all in 1865. 



In the specimen and reverse as first seen by me, scarcely more could be said of this 

 insect than the brief notice already published ; nothing appeared but a slight fragment of 

 the tip of a wing, and this would not have been dignified by a name had not the extreme 

 interest attaching to fossil insects from the horizon at which it occurred seemed to demand 

 it. The portion preserved was the upper half of the outer border with the extremities 

 of the veins impinging upon it, and two of the principal veins near the tip of the costal 

 margin ; these two veins are as usual in the Ephemeridae and probably represent the mar- 

 ginal and mediastinal (or scapular), and show that the latter reached the border scarcely 

 above the tip of the wing. 



Since my first examination, however, Mr. G. F. Matthew has worked out a considerable 

 part of the wing on one of the stones belonging to the St. John Society, which, though 

 veiy different in certain parts frcm what would have been anticipated from the portion 

 first exposed, bears out in a measure the statement that was hazarded concerning it, 

 although it proves that the generic name chosen was unfortunate. In this removal of 

 the stone from the surface of the wing, a fragment of the tip with its two veins was 

 flaked off; but as careful drawings had been taken of it, I have replaced the two lines 

 indicating the veins mentioned above upon the drawing made of the wing as it now 

 appears. This gives us indeed a much better clue to the probable form of the wing than 

 we could possibly otheiwi?e have, for the considerable and constantly increasing diver- 

 gence of the upper and lower veins of the continuous portion of the fragment leave a 

 very strange eflect ; and, without the aid these two vein-tips furnish, leave the form of the 

 apex of the wing decidedly problematical. 



