168 



THE AMEBIC AN NATUBALIST 



[Vol. LIII 



Heidelberg man, Pitliecantliropus, the great apes, and 

 all other anatomically intermediate types! His line of 

 argmnent is somewhat as follows: winged insects oc- 

 curred at an extremely early period, and no fossil Aptery- 

 gota dating back to so ancient a period has yet been dis- 

 covered; therefore Apterygota are more probably a re- 

 cent degenerate offshoot, rather than forms standing 

 more nearly in the line of development of winged insects— 

 a line of reasoning which caused the earlier Coleopter- 

 ologists to reverse the evolutionary sequence and attempt 

 to derive true beetles from the snout beetles, until further 

 discoveries brought to light the fact that true beetles were 

 geologically as ancient, or more ancient, than the snout- 

 beetle type, which comparative anatomy clearly showed 

 must have been derived from, and therefore could not be 

 ancestral to, the true beetles ! As experience has shown, 

 tlie |)aleontological evidence, wliicli at best is of a most 

 fragmentary and incomplete nature, must supplement 

 that of comparative anatomy (of adults or embryos) — 

 and even in the ca<o of tlie paleontological evidence it de- 

 pends wholly upon comi^arative anatomy here also; and 

 furtlKM'inore many fos^ii^ were themselves as highly 

 -lMM'I;ill/.c(l ;iloim- tlu'ii- (iwii lines of development as the 

 Jiio-t priniili\-(' li\ inu' forttis ai'e (some of which have re- 

 tained Jusi as many ancestral characters and are as little 

 modified in certain re^l1ects as those forms which fell by 

 the wayside at an early date). Paucity in numbers of 

 individuals among the Apterygota, their usually small 

 size and fragile nature, have all contributed to make their 

 fossil remains exti'emely I'are, and under these conditions 

 tlie lack of remain^ from earlier strata can not offset the 

 weidity aro-nment of eompai-ative anatomy and embryol- 

 ooy 1,1 favor of le-nrdinu tlieiii a^ the n."ar<-t re])resenta- 



As for (lei-iviiio- winued in>eets directly from triiobites 

 on the ground of the faint r.-enil)l;i nc(> of triiobites to 

 insects in regard to their ii(»-^c-h(iii of a certain type of 

 eye structures antenna', and lateral projections of the 

 tergal region (woefully inadequate resemblances in com- 



