APHIDES IN EOCENE BEDS. 151 



We may gather from the occurrence of numerous 

 termites, cockroaches, and buprestidous beetles, that 

 the climate, if not tropical, was above what we know 

 as temperate. We do not see Aphis represented ; and 

 perhaps the climate, which here yielded forests of 

 gigantic cycads and tree-ferns, might preclude this 

 family. 



It is, nevertheless, true that many cycads and conifers 

 appertaining to a hot climate penetrated into Purbeck- 

 Wealden times; and there is unmistakable evidence 

 that Aphis then existed. We find also that fossil 

 plants belonging to the Cretaceous series extended 

 into the Eocene of Switzerland, of Saxony, and of 

 Moravia. Several large pines and firs of a similar type 

 have been found likewise in the Greensand and Gault 

 of England. Fine specimens of such trees, the stumps 

 of which yet remain in situ, are still to be seen on the 

 south-west of the Isle of Wight. 



As these trees indicate the existence of a cooler 

 climate, there seems to be no reason why we may not 

 yet find remains of Aphides in some of the finely- 

 grained strata and deposits of this district. 



The finely-textured marine muds which formed some 

 sediments of the Chalk-series would have been well 

 suited to yield impressions of insects, yet only a few 

 beetles have as yet come under observation ; and these 

 must have been entombed in the neighbourhood of 

 some ancient shore-line. 



Ear north, in early times Greenland showed a mild 

 and genial climate, yielding good examples of several 

 species of conifer (sequoia), poplar, and walnut. As 

 yet, however, no traces of insects have come to 

 light, though there seems to be no good cause for 

 doubting that Aphides, like other winged insects, may 

 have been wafted over on the wings of the wind, and 

 have delighted the taste of the northern ants during 

 the protracted days of Arctic summer. 



Insects abounded in the localities inhabited by the 

 Pala? other ium, the Anoplotherium, the pig-like Hyopo- 



