32 
Psyche 
[March 
Collembola, one spider, four yellowish cut-worm like larvae, one 
Stenus and several specimens of an Aleocharinid beetle. The 
appearance of insects on the under side of sticks and stones does 
not normally occur much before April. 
THE PROTOCOLEOPTERA. 
By Wm. T. M. Forbes, 
Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. 
Tillyard (Proc. Linn. Soc. N. S. W. vol. 49 p. 429, 1924) pro- 
posed an order with this name, based on a fore wing from the 
Permian of Australia. The present note intends to show that 
the form there described has no distinctive characters of the 
Coleoptera, but is more probably to be credited to the Orthop- 
tera, with the possibility that it may be nearer to the ancestor 
of the Hemiptera. 
The fossil (fig. 1) is a fore wing of characteristic Coleopterous 
form, except in one extremely important point, the presence of a 
deep notch at the articulation, and a basally extended anal lobe. 
This is a common feature of the Orthoptera, being more or less 
obvious in all the families, even in the cockroaches; and is cor- 
related with a depression or fold at the base of the wing, which 
tends to bury the roots of veins M and Cu (Crampton ’27). In 
the Coleoptera there is no such fold, but the articulation of the 
elytron is direct, and the veins (except Sc) all start out more or 
less on a level. 
Secondljq the venation is rich in branches of main veins, 
with a few obliquely directed cross-veins. This is a common Or- 
thopterous condition, though as a rule the supply of cross-veins 
is also rich. Fig. 2 shows the fore wing of a Gryllacridid, with 
the basal notch (in this form open and filled by a triangular group 
of sclerites), several precostal veins, Sc and R branched, the latter 
richly, M and Cu branched, their branches anastomosing, but 
entirely free from the veins above and below; an ambilent vein, 
which passes over the end of the anal fold (PI) without change of 
