198 [February, 



INTEODUCTORY PAPERS ON FOSSIL ENTOMOLOGY. 



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



No. 11. 



Canozoic Time. 

 [Ow the Insecta of the Post Tertiary, or Quarternary Period* and the 

 animals and plants with tchich they were correlated.^ 



The numerous detacted and generally superficial deposits of more ■ 

 modern age than the most recent formations of the Pliocenef Period — 

 the next in order of chronological succession to the Miocene, and the 

 highest division of the Tertiary Age — are generally known as Post 

 Tertiary, or Quaternary formations. J 



From the nature of these formations, and their limited superficial 

 distribution, it might have been mipposed that fossil remains of the 

 Insectaoi the Period would not be abundant; but the entire absence from 

 these formations of representatives of any Order of this class, except 

 the Coleoptera, is certainly surprising. It must be remembered, how- 

 ever, that, from the hard and almost indestructible nature of their 

 elytra, the Coleoptera are capable of fossilization under much less 

 favourable conditions than is requisite for the preservation of insects 

 of most Orders, and the absence of remains of insects of such Orders 

 as the Neuroptera, the Diptera, the Hymenoptera, and the Lepidoptera, 

 and of the wings and other delicate parts of insects of other Orders 

 may, probably, be explained as due to the unfavourable nature of the 

 formations of this Period for their preservation ; but the absence of 

 the harder parts of insects of such Orders as the Semiptera and the 

 Orthoptera in those deposits in which elytra of Coleoptera have been 

 found so frequently, seems unaccountable. 



Cheat Britain.^ 

 From the Boulder formation or drift of the Norfolk cliffs, in the 

 neighbourhood of Mundsley, elytra of Coleoptera have frequently been 

 found. Some of the first discovered specimens from this neighbour- 

 hood were submitted to the late Mr. Curtis, || who identified several of 

 them, including PJlateridce (Pllater), Carahidce (ITarpalus), Scaraheidce 



* Sometimes called the "Diluvial Period :" it is distinguished from the Pliocene, which immediately 



preceded it, by the similarity of its flora and maruie fauna with those of the present age. 

 t No remains of Insects have been discovered in the rocks of the Pliocene Period. 



I From the nature of their animal remains, these formations are classed in two divisions — (1) The 



Post Pliocene, in which the majority of animals belong to existing species, but some of the 

 Birds, and many of the Mammals, are extinct ; and ;2) the Recent, in which all the animals 

 belong to existing species. 

 § In a letter to me, written in June, 1S78, Dr. Buchanan White alluded to the then recent discovery 

 of remains of Coleoptera in some interglacial deposits in Scotland ; but no particulars were 

 given, nor have I since been able to obtain any. 



II Proc. Geol. See. Lond., vol. iii, p. 175, 1840. 



