246 
Psyche 
[September 
as I anticipated, and when the task was finished, I decided 
to publish the entire translation of this paper in order 
that it might be available to other investigators of insect 
phylogeny. Although there are several points on which I 
cannot agree with Dr. Martynov, I nevertheless consider 
this paper one of the outstanding contributions to insect 
phylogeny published during the past decade. 
Dr. Martynov kindly assisted me in locating several mis- 
prints which occurred in the original text, and which had 
naturally caused me much confusion. The twelve figures 
accompanying the original article are essential for a com- 
plete understanding of the problems under discussion. 
Unfortunately, these figures were very poorly printed, and 
could not be copied for reproduction here without consid- 
erable retouching. Since there is always a possibility of 
distorting a figure during this process I decided that it 
would be better not to reprint the figures at all, but to 
refer the reader to the original ones. While this procedure, 
involving the use of two publications, may be somewhat 
inconvenient, I believe it introduces the lesser of two 
“evils.” — F. M. Carpenter. 
Comstock and Needham published (4) their first data 
on the interpretation of venation of the Odonata and Ag- 
natha in a series of articles on the wings of insects, which 
appeared in 1898 and 1899; and in 1903 Needham developed 
(10) these ideas with more details into a large work on 
the venation of Odonata. The interpretation of Odonate 
venation which was proposed in both works mentioned 
above was later accepted by the majority of Odonatolo- 
gists and by Handlirsch (6). According to this inter- 
pretation the nervuration of the Odonata proved to be so 
peculiar that it could hardly be compared even with that 
of the Agnatha — the very closest group. 
The most characteristic features of this venational sys- 
tem are the following: 1, the crossing of the radial sector 
by the bases of Mi and M 2 , and its extension into the 
region between M 2 and M a . 2, the large size of the media, 
with 4 branches; M 4 always leading from the base of M. 
