THE FOSSIL INSECTS OF THE BRITISH COAL 



MEASURES. 



INTRODUCTION. 



THE first recorded Palaeozoic insect of any country appears to have been a 

 "British specimen, LitJioxlulis brongniarti (Mantell), which was discovered in the 

 Coal Measures of Coalbrookdale in the early part of last century. It was sent by 

 Mantell to Brongniart as a leaf impression. Brongniart in turn submitted the 

 fossil to Mons. Audouin, who (1S33, Andonin, 'Ann. Soc. Ent. France,' ii, Bull., 

 p. 7) described it as " d'nn inserte inconnn," and allied to the Hemerobiidas, Semblis, 

 and especially to (%//</<(//* and ^[nlix. The specimen was afterwards figured and 

 named by Mantell (1854, ' Medals of Creation,' vol. ii, p. o7o, fig. '2). 



According to Parkinson, however, Lhuyd first recognised fossil insects in the 

 British Coal Measures. Parkinson (' Organic Remains,' vol. iii, p. 258, 1804 1811) 

 states that Lhnyd in a postscript to a letter to Dr. Richardson wrote as follows : 

 "Scrips! olini suspicari me Araneorum quorundam icones, una cum lithophytis, 

 in schisto carbonario observasse ; hoc jam nlteriore experientia edoctus aperte 

 assero. Alias icones habeo, qiue ad Scarabseorum genns ([iiam proxime accedunt. 

 In posternm ergo non tantnm Lithophyta, sed et qusedam insecta in hoc lapide 

 investigare conabimur." (' Lithophylacii,' p. 113.) 



["I have formerly written that 1 believed I had observed certain impressions of 

 spiders identical with Lithophytes in carbonaceous shales; this I now, taught by 

 later experience, openly assert. 1 have other impressions which approach nearest 

 to the family of beetles. For the future, therefore, we will endeavour to investi- 

 gate not only Lithophyta, but also certain insects in these shales."] 



Parkinson reprints four figures given by Lhnyd in his ' Iconograph/ tab. 4. 

 Two of these figures show eight legs and must therefore represent the remains of 

 Arachnids. None of the figures show wing-structure. 



o o 



Interest in the occurrence of fossil insects was stimulated in 1837 by the 

 publication of Dean Bnckland's 'Bridgewater Treatise' on Geology, in which he 

 described and figured two fossils found at Coalbrookdale by Mr. Anstice (18-37, 

 Buckland, ' Geology and Mineralogy,' '2nd ed., vol. ii, p. 70). He determined both 

 specimens to be the remains of coleopterous insects a determination since 

 corrected by H. Woodward (1871, ' Geol. Mag.,' vol. viii, p. 380, pi. xi), by 

 Scudder, and finallv by Pocock, who referred them to the Arachnida ("Terrestrial 

 Carboniferous Arachnida," 'Mon. Pal. Soc./ 1'Jll, pp. 39, 77). 

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