1934] Systematic Position of the Family Termitaphididce 261 
plerumque longiores, quadriarticulatce, soepe crassce. Hemielytra 
e clavo, corio et mernbrana composita. Clavus apicem versus 
sensim angustatus, apicem scutelli nunquam superans. Mem- 
brana venis nonnullis irregularibus et anastomosantibus vel raro 
his tota destituta. Meso-et metapleura simplicia. Coxce posticce 
rotatorice. Tarsi hiarticulat'i . Corpus superne et inferne deplana- 
tum. 
The characters italicized are those which are clearly ex- 
hibited also by the Termitaphididce . The widest divergence lies in 
the wing characters, both pairs of wings being completely absent in 
the latter genus. But presence or absence of wings was never 
even a family character and there are Aradids with both pairs 
missing. There is therefore a strong presumption that the Ter- 
mitaphididse are related to the Aradidse. The presumption is 
rendered almost a certainty by three other considerations now 
to be examined in some detail. 
Reuter (1912) laid considerable emphasis on the presence or 
absence of arolia as a taxonomic character. The Aradidse are 
said to possess no arolia and it was largely on this account that 
Reuter was unable to agree with Kirkaldy and with Bergroth 
that the Aradidse exhibit marked affinity with the Pentatomoids. 
The Termitaphididse on the other hand are furnished with very 
well-developed arolia shown clearly in Silvestri’s excellent figures 
(1911, 1921). Whether this deficiency should be taken to in- 
dicate lack of affinity between the Termitaphids and the Aradids is 
questionable, since it is doubtful whether these organs afford 
such good taxonomic characters as has been supposed. In fact 
Reuter, who used their presence or absence so largely, has him- 
self shown (1912) that they are probably of directly adaptive 
origin, varying apparently with the habitat even in genera of the 
same family. In the present case however no decision as to the 
importance of the arolia is essential to the argument since the 
Aradid genus, Ctenoneurus Bergroth, (Dysodiinse, Mezirinse) 
possesses arolia as well-developed as those of Termitaphis, or as 
those of any of Reuter’s aroliate families — Miridae, Pentatomidse 
etc. The arolia of Ctenoneurus hochstetteri (Mayr) are shown in 
figure 9. This constitutes the first supplementary proof of the 
relationship of Termitaphis to the Aradidse. Similar structures 
