424 THE AMERICAN NATURALIST. 
not purpose to discuss this question here beyond pointing out 
that in the structure of the wings there is little in common 
between these insects and the Blattide and Mantidz, with 
which they have been associated by Brauer,! or with the 
Termitidee or Psocidæ, with which they are grouped by 
Sharp.? If we were forced to decide regarding the rank of this 
family from a study of the wings alone, we would be obliged to 
regard it as representing a separate line of development of 
ordinal value. But in this place we wish merely to offer a 
suggestion regarding the probable homologies of the wing-veins. 
Fig. 49 represents the fore wing of Oligotoma and is based 
on a figure by Wood-Mason. If this figure is correct, there is 
little difficulty in recognizing the principal veins. The only 
1 
Fic. 49. — Wing of Oligotoma. 
difficulty is presented by the four transverse veins on the distal 
half of the wing. After what we have seen in the wings of 
Diptera and of Hymenoptera, the most obvious interpretation 
of these is that they are branches of the radius, the tips of 
which coalesce with vein Mı. The result of this coalescence 
is that these veins have come to appear like cross-veins, as do 
veins R4 and Æ; in the Hymenoptera. There is this striking 
difference, however: in the Hymenoptera only two branches 
of the radius bend back and unite with vein Mı; in the Embiidz 
all of the branches of the radius are modified in this way. And 
in the Embiidz there is no indication of a similar backward 
bending of the branches of the cubitus. 
ENTOMOLOGICAL LABORATORY 
CoRNELL UNIVERSITY, January, 1898. 
1 Friedrich Brauer, Systematische- ae a p- 126. 
2 The Cambridge Natural History, vo 342 
3 Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1883, p. 62 k 
