THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



Vol. XXL] JANUAEY, 1888. [No. 296. 



POST-GLACIAL INSECTS. 



By Alfred Bell. 



In a recent number of the ' Entomologist ' a question has 

 been raised touching the succession in post-glacial times of cer- 

 tain species of Lyccena. So far as my own experience goes, 

 insect remains are by no means common, and chiefly pertain to 

 the Coleoptera. Of the thirty species given in the sequel, nearly 

 all belong to this division of the insect world. It does not follow 

 that Lepidoptera were not present during the post-glacial period, 

 since they occur in beautiful preservation in deposits of much 

 older date, both in England and on the Continent, but rather that 

 the nature of the post-glacial soils is not favourable to their 

 preservation, they being mostly gravel, peat, or marine muds 

 and clays, inimical to the preservation of soft-bodied animals. 

 Hence, if anyone knows of Lepidoptera retained in a fossil 

 state, it will be of real service to Science if he will say where 

 they were found, and under what conditions. 



The proposition that one of the species came south, from 

 Scandinavia, by way of Scotland, when these two countries, but 

 not South Britain and the Continent, were united, is one that no 

 student of post-tertiary geology will admit, geological facts being 

 against such geographical arrangements. 



It is a pity that in lists of fossils from the various peat and 

 other deposits, nothing more definite than " elytra of Coleop- 

 tera" is usually recorded, because careful nomenclature would 

 materially aid in determining the geological horizon in which 

 such remains occur ; e. g., the peat at Lexden, near Colchester, 



ENTOM. — JAN. 1888. B 



