1966] 
Carpenter — Protorthoptera and Orthoptera 
55 
lively broad and oval as those of the previous order. The condition of 
MA and MP has already been commented upon. 
I can see no justification in Sharov’s account for the recognition 
of the Protorthoptera, Protoblattodea and Paraplecoptera as separate 
orders, and I propose to place all of these without subgrouping in the 
order Protorthoptera. Admittedly, the Protorthoptera as thus con- 
stituted would be almost certainly polyphyletic. But it seems to me 
that Sharov’s classification would recognize two polyphyletic orders, 
(Protoblattodea and Paraplecoptera) with the order Protorthoptera 
itself so narrowly defined as to include only one family. In all 
probability, the Palaeozoic Orthopteroids were not evolving just in 
the direction of the living orders Blattodea, Plecoptera, and Orthop- 
tera but, as a result of radial evolution, in many directions. Certainly 
this is what one would expect from the geological record of other 
groups of animals. The setting up of the three orders Protoblattodea, 
Paraplecoptera and Protorthoptera would seem to me to conceal what 
were almost certainly the real evolutionary lines of these insects. 
Hence, I prefer to group these orthopteroids into one large complex 
— the Protorthoptera — until we have enough evidence to indicate 
what the several lines of evolution have been. I do not believe that 
we have that now. 
I am convinced that Sharov is correct in maintaining that the Lem- 
matophoridae are not sufficiently different from the Liomopteridae, 
etc., to justify separation in a distinct order, Protoperlaria. Certainly, 
as Sharov points out, both fore and hind wings of the Lemmato- 
phoridae and related families can be distinguished from those of 
other Protorthoptera only with the greatest difficulty. I cannot agree 
wtih Sharov, however, in his claim that the paranotal lobes in the 
Lemmatophoridae were continuous and formed a pronotal shield as 
in Liomopteridae, instead of being independent lobes, as Tillyard 
and I had described them. Sharov states that his study of the pub- 
lished photographs in Tillyard’s (1928) and Carpenter’s (1935) 
papers shows that the lobes unite in front and behind. Although 
photographs are extremely useful in the study of fossils, they are no 
substitute for the actual specimens. Tillyard’s drawing and mine 
were based on different specimens and were made several years apart. 
I have re-examined the material in both the Harvard and Yale col- 
lections since the publication of Sharov’s paper and I cannot agree 
with the interpretation which he has made from the published photo- 
graphs. Photographs of the thoracic region of two specimens of 
Lemmatophora typa Sellards are included here (plates 4 and 5). The 
first of these shows a specimen which is not quite in a symmetrical 
