January, 1879] IQQ 



INTEODUCTORY PAPERS ON FOSSIL ENTOMOLOGY. 



BY HEEBEET GOSS, F.L.S., F.O.S. 



jS"0. 4. 



PaJceozoic Time. 



[On the Insecta of the Carhoniferous Period, and the animals and plants 

 with which they tvere Gorrelated.~\ 



In the Carboniferous rocks, remains of insects have been found 

 occasionally, but they are far from common, and up to the present 

 time only about ninety-four* species have been described. Of these, 

 five or six were obtained from the United Kingdom,t about sixty-six 

 from the continent of Europe,;j: and some twenty-two from North 

 America. § 



In my last paper, || I briefly described the few fossil insects which 

 have been discovered in the Devonian rocks of North America. These 

 fossils, it will be remembered, all belonged to the Order Neuroptera, 

 or, rather, P seudo-Neuroptera . 



In the Carboniferous rocks, remains of the Neuroptera are much 

 more numerous, and in addition to some twelve species which, from 

 their possessing characters common both to that Order and the 

 Orthoptera, have been placed by Dr. Goldenberg in an extinct Order,^ 

 about twenty-five species have been determined. 



The Orthoptera of this period are represented by more than fifty 

 species, and this Order and the Neuroptera — if we include in the last 

 named, the species referred by Goldenberg to his Palceodicfyoptera 

 — comprise all the insects yet discovered from rocks of this age, except 

 five, two of which have been referred to the Coleoptera** and three 

 to the Semiptern.ff 



Had the two last-named Orders been thoroughly established, and 

 widely distributed, geographically, at this period, their remains would, 

 in all probability, have been discovered at least as frequently as those 

 of the Neuroptera and Orthoptera. 



It appears, therefore, that at this period the Neuroptera (including 



* At page 53, ante, I spoke of the insects obtained from the carboniferous rocks as including 

 nearly ninety species. Smce the date at which I wrote, several others have been described in tha 

 Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist., vol. xix, 1877-78, and elsewhere. 



+ Coalbrook Dale, Shropshire ; near Sunderland ; near Glasgow, &c. 



t Wettin and LoebejUn, in Westphalia; Gersweiller and Saarbrlick, near Trgves ; Mannebach, 

 in Thuringia ; Erbignon, Valais, Switzerland ; Sars-Longchanips, Mons, and elsewhere in the 

 Belgian coal fields, Ac. 



§ Frog Bayou, Arkansas ; Cape Breton ; Talmadge, Ohio ; Morris, Illinois ; Pittston, 

 Pennsylvania, &c. 



II Ante, pp. 124—127. 



H i.e., Palceodktyoptera. See " Fauna Sarsepontana Fossllis," 1877, p. 50. 



** Curculioides Ansticii and Troxites Gennari. 



tt Ful'jorina Ebersi, F. Kliveri, and F. lebachensit. 



