54 
Psyche 
[March 
I consider the divergent vein as a modified cross vein, which in many 
cf the orthopteroids appears in diverse forms (e.g., Strephocladidae, 
figures I and 2). It is my opinion, therefore, that the connections 
between CuA and M are of a diverse nature in the orthopteroids 
and that these connections have arisen independently many times. 
Regarding Sharov’s proposed classification of the Palaeozoic orthop- 
teroids, I have previously (1954) adopted Zeuner’s suggestion (also 
accepted by Sharov), that the Oedischiidae are true Orthoptera; 
Sharov has with good reason made a similar inclusion of a few 
related families (of which the Permelcanidae, figure 18, is a rep- 
resentative). He then proposed restricting the Protorthoptera to the 
single family Sthenaropodidae, defining (i960, p. 295) the order as 
including those orthopteroids with “dorso-ventral flattening of the 
body, cursorial hind legs, lacking the two rows of spines on the hind 
margin of the tibia, by the small precostal area lacking the numerous 
veinlets and by the absence of an undifferentiated concave MA2.” 
This definition I find much too narrow for an order; it might well 
fit a family — a small one — but certainly not an order. The re- 
mainder of the orthopteroids which I have previously included in the 
Protorthoptera, Sharov proposes to divide into the Protoblattodea and 
the Paraplecoptera. The former order he would restrict to those 
species having wide coriaceous fore wings, the absence of a clearly 
defined division of the media stem into two main branches, MA and 
MP, by large coxae and by general resemblance to Blattodea. In 
this case, Sharov’s characterization seems to be much too broad and 
generalized. Certainly the coriaceous nature of the fore wings varies 
greatly within orders (e.g., Orthoptera) ; in some the fore wings are 
truly membranous but in others they are definite tegmina or even 
elytra. So far as the division of the media into MA and MP is 
concerned, I question that this is clearly divided in any of the orthop- 
teroids; as noted above, there is no orthopteroid that has a convex, 
and therefore, definite, MA. The coxae are known in very few of 
the species that Sharov would place in the Protoblattodea and, once 
again, I cannot see this as an ordinal characteristic. The Paraplecop- 
tera are distinguished by Sharov by the presence of membranous, 
elongated fore wings, by the clearly defined division of the median 
into MA and MP and by the general resemblance of the insects to 
the Plecoptera. On examining the genera which Sharov includes in 
the Paraplecoptera, as described and figured in the Osnovy (1962), 
I find many families (e.g., Spanioderidae, Probnidae, Strephocladidae, 
etc.) in which the fore wings are distinctly coriaceous and as rela- 
