The Rev. F. W. Hope on Succinic Insects. 133 



XXX. Observations on Succinic Insects. By the Rev. 

 F. W. Hope, F.R.S., Pres. Ent. Soc, Sfc. 



[Read March 3, 1834.] 



At our last meeting * some few observations were read on mummied 

 insects in a tolerable state of preservation after the lapse of two or 

 three thousand years. I now wish to draw your attention to insects 

 of much greater antiquity, insects which for aught I know may vie 

 in antiquity with the " great globe itself." I allude to those which 

 are contained in amber. It requires no very warm imagination to 

 paint in glowing colours the overwhelming productiveness of the 

 earliest ages : enough may be gathered for our present purpose from 

 the imagery of the poet, in describing a period when the sun with 

 greater power than at present shot his rays on the gladdened forest, 

 when every tree and shrub distilled liquid amber from their branches, 

 and when the whole air teemed with the countless myriads of insect 

 population. It may require however the wand of the fairy or ma- 

 gician to account for the sudden and happy inhumation of these in- 

 sects in their amber tenements ; I say happy, for in most instances 

 they aj^pear not to have struggled to avoid their destiny, but seem 

 fresh and beautiful as if still animate with life. It is not my inten- 

 tion here to propound a theory ; this I most willingly leave to 

 others : some speculations have enjoyed an ephemeral reputation, 

 and then fell without any very satisfactory results being obtained 

 from them, and others will probably do the same. I shall therefore 

 proceed at once to make some remarks on the substances which con- 

 tain insects, give the tests by which they may be known f, and then 

 place before you a Synoptical Table of such genera and species as 

 have fallen under my notice. The only recorded bituminous and 

 resinous substances, I believe, which contain insects are the follow- 

 ing, namely, amber and copal (Observe, I do not here include the 

 Crustacea or Arachnida) . It is not unlikely however that eventually 

 they may be discovered in coal +, bituminized shale, and in the 

 honey-stone. Amber is occasionally met with in the gravel-pits 

 near London, and I have seen specimens which were found in Hyde 

 Park. At Aldborough on the coast of Suffolk, after a raking tide, it 

 is thrown on the beach in considerable quantities, along with masses 



* Vide Journal of Proceedings, p. xi. 



f See Supplementary Observations by Dr. Ure, annexed. 



X I have subsequently learned that some have been found in coal near Bonn, 

 Vide Proceedings Geological Society. 



VOL. I. PART III. M 



