122 
Psyche 
[June 
figure a. 4 The fossil consists of a nearly whole insect, with outstretched 
but somewhat distorted wings. Subsequent to Brongniart’s study of 
the fossil, as noted by Lameere (1917), specimen 18-8 was covered 
with shellac, which rendered the venation of that counterpart nearly 
invisible. The shellac was still on the fossil in 1938 when I examined 
the specimen, but it has subsequently been removed, so that the vena- 
tional details are now discernible. The fore wing, not quite complete, 
is 21 mm. long; the hind wing, complete, is 21 mm. long and 7 mm. 
wide. The body length excluding cerci is 25 mm. In the following 
discussion I am using specimen 18-9 for reference, this being the better 
of the two counterparts and the one on which Demoulin based his 
interpretation. 
Wings. The right fore wing is incompletely preserved (fig. c, plate 
14), lacking the very base, the apex, and the distal parts of the poste- 
rior margin; however, most of the rest of the wing is clearly pre- 
served and it shows no distortion. Demoulin was convinced from his 
study of photographs of the fossil that the wing was very broad and 
nearly triangular (fig. a, plate 13) ; he also believed that he could see 
the veins of this wing extending much further distally than they were 
indicated in the figures of Brongniart. I have been unable to find any 
indications of such extensions of the veins in the fossil itself ; there are 
faint surface markings on the rock which Demoulin may have noted in 
the photograph, but these are features of the rock’s matrix; an exami- 
nation of the specimen shows that similar markings are visible on 
various parts of the rock containing the fossil, some of this being clear- 
ly below the right hind wing of the photograph reproduced in 
Demoulin’s paper. Such markings are also present on the rock a 
considerable distance away from the fossil itself. Consequently, al- 
though the apical and posterior margins of the fore wing are not 
preserved, there is, in my opinion, no evidence whatsoever that the 
wing was significantly broader than the hind wing or that it was nearly 
triangular in shape. Demoulin also believed that he could see in the 
photograph at the base of the fore wing a short submarginal costa and 
a precostal space. Neither Brongniart nor Lameere noted such a 
structure and I find none in the fossil. In this wing the stem of Rs 
can be followed clearly to its point of origin from R 1 but the stem of 
MA is not preserved, a piece of the matrix being broken away at this 
point. However, one certainly gets the impression from the condition 
in the specimen that the basal part of MA is close to Rs, although the 
two veins are not in contact. 
4 For convenience of reference these counterparts are subsequently designated 
in the present paper as specimens 18-8 and 18-9. 
