P. B. BEODIE ON FOSSIL APHIDES. 147 



in later times they developed tracheae (Prototracheata), 

 and that in this manner they became capable of air 

 respiration. They would thus shadow out the Arthro- 

 poda, and thus far the Insecta. 



Dr. Friz Midler also looks to the Crustacea as a 

 channel through which the Insecta may have risen. 



On the other hand, Professor Balfour places Crus- 

 tacea in order after Insecta in his ' Comparative Em- 

 bryology.'* Certain it is that insects, with their com- 

 paratively high condition of intelligence, appeared long 

 before the epoch of the great Saurians, and afterwards 

 we find them contemporaneous with the Pterodactyl of 

 the Lias. 



Mr. A. R. Wallace remarks : — "At this remote epoch 

 the chief families of insects, as set forth by Linnsean 

 genera, were perfectly differentiated and recognisable." 



The earliest notice of any fossil Aphis that I have 

 met with is that furnished by J. Curtis, who, in 1829, 

 catalogued, but did not figure, " an Aphis of the 

 middle size," forming one of his specimens (No. 25) 

 taken from the Eocene Beds of Aix (Ligurian). This 

 notice occurs in a joint paper by Murchison andLyell. 

 It describes many insects taken from these Tertiary 

 deposits. Curtis says of these specimens : — " Although 

 there are sufficient characters preserved to determine 

 with certainty the genera to which many of the insects 

 belong, the parts which would best do so are indis- 

 tinct, the antennae, tarsi, and trophi being generally 

 very obscure and distorted. f 



In the year 1839 the Rev. P. B. Brodie gave a short 

 description of some English fossil Homoptera. After- 

 wards, in 1845, he published his book on the ■ Fossil 

 Insects of the Secondary Rocks of England,' to which 

 Professor Westwood added an Introduction and descrip- 

 tions. In this work (now difficult to be procured) 

 Mr. Brodie first notices numerous insects preserved in 



* See F. M. Balfour " On the Affinities of Peripaius capensis with 

 the Tracheate Arthropoda," ' Comp. Embryology,' vol. i, p. 316. 

 f ' Edinb. New Phil. Journ.,' pp. 287—294, 1829. 



