231 



A FOSSIL INSECT WING BELONGING TO THE NEW 

 ORDER PARAMECOPTERA, ANCESTRAL TO THE 

 TRICHOPTERA AND LEPIDOPTERA, FROM THE 

 UPPER COAL-MEASURES OF NEWCASTLE, N.S.W. 



By R, J. Tillyard, M.A., D.Sc, F.L.S., F.E.S., Linnean 

 Maclbay Fellow of the Society in Zoology. 



(Plates xii.-xiii., and eight Text-figures). 



The working out of Mr. John Mitchell's Collection of Fossil 

 Insects from the Upper Coal-Measures of Newcastle, New South 

 \Vales(4), proved the existence of Holometabolous Insects in 

 Paheozoic times, the genus Permochorisla from Belmont being an 

 undoubted Mecopteron, closely allied to, and almost certainly 

 directly ancestral to, the genus Tceniochorista found in Australia 

 at the present day. That being so, the great importance of 

 these fossils to science became at once evident; since further dis- 

 coveries would almost certainly throw new light upon the all- 

 important problem of the origin of the Holometabola. I there- 

 fore arranged with Mr. Mitchell to visit the Belmont Beds, in 

 order to see for myself the place where he had found the fossils. 



In my previous paper (^ p. 723), I gave a figure of a vertical 

 section through the Upper Coal-Measures, showing the exact 

 position of the Belmont Beds within them. As there stated, 

 they lie about 600 feet below the top of the Upper Coal-Measures, 

 and may therefore be regarded as of Upper Permian age. I can 

 now add a few impressions of the Beds themselves as I saw them. 



Some two miles back along the Newcastle Road from Belmont, 

 there has been quarried out from the top of a low, wooded hill a 

 quantity of hard, cherty shale. This was made use of for a time 

 for mending the road, but was found unsuitable, so that the 

 quarry was soon abandoned. The band of cherty shale is nowhere 

 more than a yard thick, and is only uncovered in an irregular 



