GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA. 



CONTRIBUTIONS TO CANADIAN PALAEONTOLOGY. 



"VOLXJUVEE II. 



OAFADIAN FOSSIL INSECTS. 



By Samuel H. Scudder. 



■3. jVotes upon inyriapods and arachnids found in sigillarian stumps in 

 the Nova Scotia coal field. 



Sir William Dawson more than thirty years ago published in England 

 the first account* of a gaily -worm which was found in the cavities of erect 

 sigillarian stumps in Nova Scotia, and which he called Xylobius sigillarice. 

 Nearly twenty years ago he kindly submitted to my examination all the 

 material he had collected, and in a couple of papers published in the 

 United States f descriptions were given of five species and two genera, 

 Xylobius and Archiulus, of myriapods found therein. Since then Archiulus 

 has been found in other American Carboniferous deposits and Xylobius in 

 the coal measures of Europe. 



By the aid of a grant from the Royal Society of London, Sir William 

 afterwards made a further search among the sigillarian trees in Nova 

 Scotia and placed in my hands the remains of the articulates then found, 

 upon which I made a brief report some ten years ago in connection with 

 his own, X but until now have been unable to complete my study of them. 



The fragments, for such they all are, which were sent to me for exami- 

 nation, consist almost exclusively of myriapodal remains, often of single 

 segments only, and generally in a more or less crushed, flattened, and dis- 

 torted condition. All the species formerly separated in my first study of 

 remains from these stumps occur in the present collection, but very little 

 additional information can be gained from them. Such as it is it will be 

 found below. A few specimens of different species exhibit the marks 

 which were formerly interpreted as the opening of the stink-glands, fora- 

 mina repugnatoria, common in recent myriapods, but these are now pre- 

 sumed to be the casts of the bases of spines ; in no case have the spines 

 themselves been preserved, and whatever spines they possessed must have 

 been wholly insignificant compared with those of the bristling Archipolypoda 



* Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, Lond., xvi., 268-273, figs. 4-9. 



t Mem. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist., ii., 231-239, 561-562, figs. 1-7 ; Foss. Ins. N. A.., i., 21-3 



t Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc, Lon., 1882, ii., 621-659, pi. 39-47. 

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