1879.] 



him, wliicli do not occur farther east, are li. Damon and X. Esclieri, An- 

 fJiocharis Bella, and two species of Safi/rus, "which genus seems to be 

 altogether wanting in the Albula Valley. The occurrence of all the 

 three European Parnassius in one valley is also very remarkable. 



INTEODUCTORY PAPERS ON FOSSIL ENTOMOLOGY. 

 BY HEEBEET GOSS, F.L.S., E.G.S. 



No. 7. 



PART I. 



Mesozoic Time. 



[0?i tlie Insecta of the Jurassic* Period, and the animals and plants 

 ivith which tliey loere correlated7\ 



From the rocks of this Period — which consist in ascending order 

 of the Lias and Oolites^ — so large a number of fossil insects has been 

 obtained that it would be impossible even to name the genera to which 

 they have been referred, in a paper of moderate length. 



I have, therefore, divided this paper into two parts, in the first of 

 which I propose to enumerate the principal families and genera of the 

 Insecta which have been discovered in the Lias, and, in the second part, 

 those obtained from the Oolites. 



Lias. 

 Great Britain. 



In some sections of the Lias, or in the Ehseticf series, between it 

 and the Trias, remains of insects have been found massed together in 

 such abundance that the beds containing them have been called the 

 " Insect Limestone." These fossils have been obtained chiefly from 

 the lotverX division of this formation in Gloucestershire, Worcester- 

 shire, Warwickshire, Somersetshire, and Monmouthshire. 



The majority of these Liassic insects were discovered by the 

 Eev. P. B. Brodie, Mr. H. E. Strickland, the Eev. E. W. Hope, and 

 Mr. E. T. Higgins ; a few specimens were also described by the two 

 first-named gentlemen, but for the determination of the bulk of them 

 we are indebted to Prof. Westwood,§ to whom nearly 300 specimens 

 were submitted. 



* So named from the mountain range of the Jura on the western borders of Switzerland, in 

 which the Lias and the Oolitic limestones are largely developed. 



t The Rhfetic beds are, more strictly, beds of passage between the Trias and the Lias, than 

 part of the latter formation. 



t I have recently received from C. Moore, Esq., P.G.S., of Bath, a considerable collection of 

 fossil insects (including Coleoptera, Orthopteva, Neuropiera, izc.) from the iijiper Lias of Ilminster. 



§ See "Introductory Observations," by Prof. Westwood, to Brodie's "History of the Fossil 

 Insects in the Secondary Rocks of England." London : 181.l>. 



