104 G. F. MATTHEW ON THE ORGANIC RRMAINS OF THE 



By the number of genera common to the Little River flora and that of the Upper Devo- 

 nian, one might be led to think that the relations of these two floras was a close one, Init 

 certain facts militate against this supjjosition. In the first place, the ferns of the Upper 

 Devonian are fairly well known, and while they have close analogies with those of the 

 Lower Carboniferous, there are fewer cases of such relationship with those of the Little 

 River group, and the numerous herbaceous species of the Little River group are, with a few 

 exceptions, wanting. In the second place, while the Upper Devonian and Lower Carbon- 

 iferous have two genera of ferns closely allied by their venation, but diftering in their habit 

 of growth, ArchiBopteris and Aneimites, only the latter genus is with certainty found in 

 the Little River flora.' The absence of Archseopteris, which is the fern genus specially 

 characteristic of the Upper Devonian, would seem to indicate only a distant relation between 

 its flora and that of the Little River group. 



Neither can we see any very close relation between the Little River flora and that of the 

 Middle Devonian. Quite as large a proportion of its genera (one-third) are common to this 

 and the Little River flora, as is the case witb the Upper Devonian. But all of those have a 

 wide range in the Pre-Carboniferous floras, and several of them extend even into the Coal- 

 measures. But further than this, while we are able to make comparisons with relation to 

 the ferns between the Little River flora and that of the Upper Devonian, it is not possible to 

 draw any conclusions on this basis between the former flora and that of the Middle or Lower 

 Devonian much less the Silurian. Hence, so far as this important element of the Little 

 River flora is concerned a reference to any special part of these earlier divisions of the Pal- 

 seozoic column must be vague, and provisional. 



The failure to get any satisfactory results in specially deflning the geological horizon of 

 the Little River Group, from a consideration of the plant remains, as regards their genera, is 

 plainly due in the cases of the larger plants and the stems, to the wide range of those genera. 

 Our want of success in this may at any time be changed by the discovery of larger and more 

 varied floras in the Devonian and Silurian than are at present known. Meanwhile all that 

 we seem able to assert is, that the flora of the Little River Group is older than the Upper 

 Devonian. 



3. Sketch of the History of Fossil Myriaj>ods. 



The common Earwig is the best known example of a class of articulate animals, not 

 very familiar to us because of their comparative scarcity and secretive habits. In these res- 

 pects they are the opposite of some species of the immensely more numerous and obtru- 

 sively familiar Hexapods, or true insects. Myriapods differ strikingly from the latter in 

 their long worm-like bodies, composed of numerous segments, and liaving equally numerous, 

 or more numerous feet. So distinct are the Myriapods in these and other respects from the 

 true insects, that many writers recognize them as a separate class, of equal rank with the 

 Crustaceans, Hexapods and Arachnids (spiders and scorpions). 



Though now comparatively rare, in past ages the Myriapods pla^^ed an important part 

 in peopling the land areas of the globe, and possessed great diversity of structure. Only a 

 few species from the Palseozoic rocks have been known until of late years, but gradually the 

 number has been increased, and as their diversity of form has been recognized, the import- 



' Sir Wm. Dawson quotes Archseopterit Jackgoni, but the presence of this species is based on the occurrence of a 

 broken fragment, which may have been misunderstood. 



