OOLITIC ERA. 



133 



mate in form and function to the crayfish and lobsters of 

 Insects, destructible as their remains may 



existing waters. 



1. Eryon ; 2, Megacheirus ; 3, Archaeoniscus ; 4, 5, Cyprides natural size, and magnified. 



seem, now assume an important place in the lists of the 

 palaeontologist burrowers among the decaying timber of 

 the pine-forests ; leapers among the leaves and herbage of 

 the cycas grove; hunters along the river-bank and across 

 its sunny waters ; and gaudy flutterers over the flowers of 

 the lily and palm-tree. All the great orders of insect-life 

 beetles, cockroaches, dragon-flies, grasshoppers, and ants 

 are abundantly represented, and their resemblances (if 

 not affinities) are indicated at once by such generic appella- 

 tions as buprestium, blattidium, libellelium, cicadeUium, 

 and formicium. 



The waters are now thronged with molluscan life. The 

 minute polyzoans or sea-mats weave their delicate network 

 (diastopora, ceriopora, lieteropora, &c.) over shells, encrin- 

 ites, and every available ground-work varying slightly in 



i 



