THE TERTIARY INSECTS OF NORTH AMERICA. 



By Samuel H. Scdddek. 



INTRODUCTION. 



That creatures so minute and fragile as insects, creatures which can so 

 feebly withstand the changing- seasons as to live, so to speak, but a moment, 

 are to be found fossil, engraved, as it were, upon the rocks or embedded in 

 their hard mass, will never cease to be a surprise to those unfamiliar with the 

 fact. "So fragile," says Quinet', " so easy to crush, you would readily beheve 

 the insect one of the latest beings produced by nature, one of those which has 

 least resisted the action of time ; that its type, its genera, its forms, must have 

 been ground to powder a thousand times, annihilated by the revolutions 

 of the globe, and perpetually thrown into the crucible. For where is its 

 defense ? Of what value its antennae, its shield, its wino^s of g-auze, ao-ainst 

 the commotions and the tempests which change the surface of the earth '? 

 When the mountains themselves are overthrown and the seas u|)lifted, when 

 the giants of structure, the mighty quadrupeds, change form and habit under 

 the pressure of circumstances, will the insect withstand them ? Is it it 

 which will display most character in nature ? Yes ! The universe flings 

 itself against a gnat. Where will it find refuge? In its very diminutive- 

 ness, its nothingness." 



The pages and plates of the present volume bear testimony to the fact 

 that our tertiary strata have preserved remnants of an ancient host, so 

 varied in structure, so closely also resembling their brethren of to-day, 

 that nearly or quite every prevalent family-group in the entire range of the 

 insect-world has already been deircnstrated to have then existed. While 

 often fragmentary and crushed, sometimes beyond recognition, a not in- 

 significant number are sufficiently preserved for us to repopulate the past ; 



' £. Quinet : La Creation, vol. 1, p. 197. 



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