676 



MESOZOIC INSECTS OF QUEENSLAND. 



No. 2. The Fossil Dragonfly .Eschsidiopsis {.Eschsa) flin- 

 DERSiEssis Woodward), from the Rollincj Downs (Cre- 

 taceous) Series. 



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

 Macleay Fellow of the Society in Zoology. 



(Plates xlii.-xliii.) 



" The very interesting, fossil Dragonfly-wing, that forms the 

 subject of this paper, was found associated with the small bivalve 

 Mollusc, Aucella hiighendensis Eth., in the chocolate-coloured 

 limestone of the Flinders River, North Queensland,* seven miles 

 above Marathon Station This limestone is of Cretaceous age. 

 The fossil was sent to Dr. Henry Woodward, F.R.S., etc., and 

 was described by him (5) in 1884 'AH ^Eschna Jlindersiends, "as 

 recognising its localit}' on the Flinders River, and one of Aus- 

 tralia's earliest explorers and heroes." 



That the wing did not belong to the recent genus uEschna, nor 

 to any recent subfamily, was obvious enough from Woodward's 

 own figure. In 1908, Handlirsch, who had never seen the fossil 

 itself, removed it to the extinct family ^Esch7iidiidai{2), and 

 placed it in the genus .Eschnidkwi. 



Wishing to study this insect, I wrote some years ago to the 

 Director of the Queensland Museum, to try and find its where- 

 abtjuts. He soon satisfied me that it was not in the Museum 

 Collection. Inquiries from Mr. Dunstan, Chief Government 

 Geologist of Queensland, at the Geological Survey, elicited the 



"" The locality is not far from the town of Hughenden, and is now classed 

 an Western Queensland; it lies almost exactly half-way along a North- 

 South line drawn from Cape York to the New South Wales border. 



