io8 
Psyche 
[December 
It is clear from this quoted passage that Fraser’s conclusions are 
based on his belief that Protagrion was designated by Brongniart as 
the type genus of the Order Protodonata and that the Rules of 
Nomenclature consequently require us to use that conception of the 
order. I believe it is Dr. Fraser who is in error here. The Rules of 
Nomenclature have not been applied by the Commission on Nomen- 
clature to orders and higher taxa. The accepted policy regarding 
these higher categories has been well summarized by Simpson in his 
recent discussion of the principles of taxonomy (1961, p. 30) : “Pro- 
posals have been made to extend the type system (and priority) to 
names of still higher taxa, above superfamilies, but this provision 
is not now embodied in the Rules or in general usage. At present 
the names of those higher taxa, of course much less numerous than 
names of genera or species, are determined only by consensus and 
acceptance of authority, and at these levels that informal system 
seems to work at least as well as the Rules do at lower levels.” 
Since the term Protodonata was first used in an ordinal capacity 
by Handlirsch ( 1906b), as I have stated above, and since his definition 
of the order was based mainly on the Meganeuridae, I prefer to use 
the name Protodonata for the order containing the Meganeuridae. 
Moreover, if the Rules of Nomenclature are applied to the ordinal 
name here, I contend that Protagrion has no standing as the type genus 
of the Protodonata and that, in fact, the genus Meganeura more logic- 
ally and appropriately stands as the type genus. In this connection 
it is necessary to correct Fraser’s statement quoted above, that “Brong- 
niart established his family Protagriidae on a single genus Protagrion 
(1885)”. At no time did Brongniart ever use the family name Pro- 
tagriidae [ Protagrionidae] ; it was first used by Handlirsch in 1906 
(1906b). Consequently, this statement by Fraser has no meaning 
or application whatsoever to the term Protodonata. The name Pro- 
todonata was first used by Brongniart in 1885 (p. 55). In this 
paper Brongniart discussed a series of orders, one of these being the 
“Neurorthopteres” and another the “Pseudoneuroptera”. In this 
latter order he placed, among others, two families, one which he 
called Megasecopterida and another which he designated Protodonata. 
His precise statement about the “family Protodonata” is as follows: 
“Je rangerai a cote de ces Megasecopterida un type ancestral des 
Libellules ; la creation de la famille des Protodonata . . . et du genre 
Protagrion . . . me semble necessaire. Une aile seulement a ete 
trouvee jusqu’ici a Commentry; elles [sic] mesure 10 centimetres de 
