124 PKOCEEDINGS ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



Hymenoptera are bees, or at all nearly related to them. It is 

 possible that there were Mesozoic bees, but if so, they have still 

 to be found. In the upper Cretaceous of Colorado, the speaker had 

 found fairly large pieces of amber, but careful search in it has not 

 produced any plant or insect remains. Insect-bearing amber from 

 the Cretaceous would of course be of extraordinary value, and 

 might be expected to throw light on many entomological problems. 

 In this country there are extensive insect bearing beds of Eocene 

 age in Wyoming, and especially in the region about the boundary 

 between Colorado and Utah. Mr. Earl Douglass, who has recently 

 come from that region, stated to the speaker that the insect bearing 

 deposits he had examined were extremely rich, but nearly all of the 

 insects were small. It is hoped to visit these deposits at some future 

 time, and as they are much older than either the Prussian amber or 

 the Florissant shales, it is expected that very interesting materials 

 may be found. 



The species from Eocene horizons described by Scudder, though 

 quite numerous, must represent only a small part of the fauna which 

 has been preserved. 



The Prussian amber insects are extremely numerous, and many 

 of them so beautifully preserved that it is possible to count the pal- 

 pal joints, and see many other details of structure. They have 

 about 100,000 specimens in the collection at Konigsberg. The 

 speaker, some years ago, described the bees of the Konigsberg col- 

 lection, and found that all the genera were extinct, while some of 

 the other Hymenoptera, as for instance, two species of Crabro, be- 

 longed strictly to living genera. The amber insects, after being 

 much neglected, are now being carefully worked up, and attention 

 must especially be called to Ulmer's magnificent monograph of 

 amber Trichoptera. Dr. W. M. Wheeler has just completed the 

 study of the amber ants, and his paper will be of the greatest inter- 

 est, showing a curious mixture of quite modern Palaearctic types, 

 with many remarkable genera of Indo-Malay affinities. 



The Florissant beds, in which the speaker has principally worked, 

 are of Miocene, probably Upper Miocene, age. The species known 

 from there now considerably exceed a thousand, and it becomes 

 possible to draw some conclusions from the absence as well as the 

 presence of certain groups. It is very singular that no true Musci- 

 dse and no Tachinidse have ever been found; while on the other 

 hand Nemestrinidse were well represented, and there were two spe- 

 cies of tse-tse fly, Glossina. The Bombyliidse and Aphididse seem, 

 though numerous, all to belong to extinct genera but in some other 

 families, equally common, all or nearly all the genera appear to be 

 still living. It has appeared not necessary, for example, to pro- 

 pose a new generic name or any one of the Asilidae. Tipulidae 



