40 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF 



subsidence alluded to, combined with the metamorphic character 

 imposed upon many strata by the injection of trap in a state of 

 igneous fluidity, if lepidopterous life then existed, have either com- 

 pletely removed it from our reach, or obliterated every trace of 

 remains once preserved. 



In Europe, when we take into consideration the areas in which 

 these beds were deposited, we are not surprised at the absence of 

 traces of lepidopterous life. Being shallow basins of fresh water, 

 with mud-flat margins, and occasional flats submerged b}' inun- 

 dations of salt water, we should not expect to meet with lepidop- 

 terous life. It is onty in such localities that we should look for 

 the remains of neuropterous insects. It is a remarkable fact that 

 the only fossil insect thus far observed is the larva (or exuviae of 

 the larva) of a neuropter, related to the genus Ephemera, which 

 was found in the shales at Turner's Falls, on the Connecticut 

 River, and described by Prof. Hitchcock. The impressions of the 

 feet of insects found in the sandstones of the Connecticut River 

 valley, were undoubtedly of neuropterous and crustaceous char- 

 acter. 



Unless the advent of the Tineids dates further back in time than 

 the Jurassic, allowing the family to be the lowest of the Heterocera, 

 we have the simultaneous origin of insects as low in the scale of 

 creation as these, with others, the Sphinges, which mark a pre- 

 eminently higher type of development, unless it can be shown, 

 which is exceedingly uncertain, that the former claim priority of 

 birth, and constitute the immediate and proximate ancestry of the 

 latter. The chapters of the Stone Book of Nature, so far as the}* 

 are perusable, do not reveal any such history. The intermediate 

 links by which the chain of existence from Tineids passes into 

 Sphinges, are missing, and doubtless will never be restored. If 

 Tineids have passed directly into the Sphinges, would not, unless 

 our present t3'pes are the degenerated forms of pre-existent ones, 

 some unmistakable evidences be found in studying the earl} r stages 

 of modern species? Instances could be multiplied beyond limit 

 of the special roads which nature has pursued in reaching particu- 

 lar forms, from others that occupy an inferior position. 



The simplest forms of life of which we have any conception, are 

 the Monera, which may be defined as living jelly, formless and 

 structureless. They move along by a sort of gliding motion, which 

 is produced by a protrusion and retraction of portions of their sub- 



