1930 ] 
The Mecopteron Notiothauma reedi 
93 
Gryllacridse, Panorpids, etc. (Psyche, 34, p. 59 and Bull. 
Brooklyn Ent. Soc., 23, p. 113), and when such an im- 
portant form as the fossil Metropator is figured with a 
basal arch in the first anal vein by Tillyard, 1926 (Amer. 
Jour, of Science, 11, p. 161) I think that this (together 
with the outline, venation, etc. of the wing) indicates that 
Metropator is more closely related to the Protorthopteroids 
than to the Palaeodictyoptera, although Handlirsch places 
Metropator in his order Palaeodictyoptera, and not in the 
order Protorthoptera as Tillyard states. Eubleptus (order 
Eubleptoptera) may be nearer the Palaeodictyoptera, but 
Metropator (Metropatoroptera) evidently represents a 
type worthy of ordinal rank, closely related to the 
Protorthoptera, and with a venation approaching that of 
some Mecoptera with reduced venation, through conver- 
gence. Metropator lacks the costal veinlets, the forked Cut 
and other features which were undoubtedly present in the 
ancestral Mecoptera, and I think that Tillyard, 1926, is 
mistaken in considering this Protorthopteroid insect as an 
ancestral Mecopteron, 
The resemblance of the wing of Metropator to that of a 
Mecopteron with reduced venation, is apparently due to 
convergence, or possibly to adumbration and the relation- 
ship of Metropator to the Mecoptera would be by way of a 
common Protorthopteroid or Protoblattoid ancestor, and 
would not be the direct relationship of ancestral and 
derived types. 
As was mentioned above, the first anal has a well devel- 
oped basal arch. The second anal is not so pronouncedly 
arched, and joins the third anal basally. The third anal has 
an almost straight trunk (anotr uncus) which gives off four 
branches unilaterally — though some of these may be 
branches of the second anal vein. The cellules filling the 
anal or claval area make it very difficult to determine the 
course of the anals and their branches, and the interpreta- 
tion here given is truly provisional. The trunk of the third 
anal demarks the claval or anal area from the jugalula a 
of Fig. 1 in many insects, and is a fairly serviceable land- 
mark in Notiothauma. 
Esben-Petersen refers to the jugalula a of Fig. 1, as the 
“clavus,” but this lobe is not the homologue of the clavus 
