164 



smaller than their smallest living relatives of the present day, as 

 is also the case with the insects of the English Lias. When the 

 conditions of climate are favourable to a luxuriant growth of 

 plants and insects, the larger forms of the insect class arc- 

 developed, as in trofjical America and Asia, but side by side v\ith 

 these large species thousands of minute species are to be found. 

 It may be inferred from the general smallness of the Liassic 

 insects, both from Continental and English strata, that insect life 

 was not at this period so luxuriant, or capable of producing such 

 large forms as the tropical world of the present day. The 

 numerical proportions of the families furnish evidence of a warm 

 climate. The Buprestldce are very numerously represented. Of 

 the Termites eight tropical forms have Ijeen discovered, and the 

 cockroaches appear, says Heer, more closely allied to those now 

 inhabiting the Torrid Zone than to those of SAWtzerland at the 

 present day. 



The only other record which I have been able to find of the 

 occurrence of insects in this formation on the Continent, is 

 contained in the second volume of Bronn's * " Lethea 

 Geognostica." At page 210 of that woik it is stated that Count 

 Miinster detected some wings of insects in the Lias of Bayreuth. 



Tkias, or Upper New Red Sandstone. 



The Trias or Triple Group is separable on the Continent 

 into three distinct formations, called the "Keuper," the 

 "Muschelkalk,"and the "BunterSandstein." The ^' Masc/wlkalk," 

 or Calcaire Coquillicr of French geologists, is wanting in this 

 country. As has before been stated, ns traces of insects have as 

 yet been found in any part of this formation in the United 

 Kingdom, and until recently none had been recorded from strata 

 of this period on the Continent. M. Oustalot, in the first part of 

 . his "Recherches sur lesinsectes fossiles," published in 1871, says 

 " Les insectes fossiles inanquent jusqu'i present dans le terrain 



* Jahrb. 1835, s. 335 and Lethea Geognostica, vol. i., p. 210. 



