524 



FOSSORES FOTHERGILLIA. 



it is no less remarkable than certain, that their gene- 

 ral character was very different, and that most of their 

 races have been entirely annihilated. 



The species of deer known by the name of the Irish 

 elk, affords one instance, at least, of an animal which 

 has apparently become extinct since the exislem e of 

 man upon the earth. It occurs in a fossil state in 

 Ireland, the Isle of Man, England, Germany, and 

 France. The most perfect specimen of the skeleton 

 of this species hitherto met with, is that which was 

 found in the Isle of Man, and is now preserved in the 

 Museum of the University of Edinburgh. It is six 

 feet high, nine feet long, and in height, to the tip of 

 the right horn, nine feet seven and a half inches. It 

 was embedded in a loose shell marl, in which were 

 numerous embedded mots and branches; over the 

 marl was a bed of sand, above this a bed of peat, and 

 over the peat the common soil of the country. 



Hitherto no remains of apes, baboons, monkeys, or 

 other tribes of the order Qnadrumana, have been met 

 with, nor any trace of their existence, unless we con- 

 sider that those extraordinary casts in sandstone of 

 the impressions of the feet of some unknown animal, 

 which have been found in Germany, are to be referred j 

 to animals of this kind. A slab of this stone, with , 

 these impressions, is in the British Museum, and the 

 cast taken from it exhibits the appearance of the im- 

 pression of a large thumb, with indistinct traces of 

 parts of the other extremities of some animal, occur- 

 ring at regular distances, forming an object well worth 

 the attention of the curious visiter. 



A fact must now be noticed connected with fossil 

 osteology, of the most remarkable and striking kind. 

 We find the remains of different genera of quadru- 

 peds, bird", reptiles, fishes, insects, mollusca, and vege- 

 tables, in the fossil state ; but hitherto no human 

 remains have been found, nor any traces of the works 

 of man in those particular formations in which these 

 different organic fossils have been discovered ; that is 

 to say, no human bones have been found in the regu- 

 lar strata of the surface of the globe. In alluvial beds, 

 peat bogs, and ancient burial grounds, they are dug 

 up as abundantly as the bones of any other living 

 species ; but not a fragment of human bone has been 

 found in such situations as to lead us to suppose that 

 man was contemporary with the more ancient races, 

 with the PalcEuthcria, Anoplotherio, or even with the 

 elephants, megatheria, and rhinoceroses of a compara- 

 tively recent era. Nothing has been found to indi- 

 cate the existence of the human race at a period 

 antecedent to the last general catastrophe of the 

 globe, at least, in those parts where the study of or- 

 ganic remains has been followed up by a careful 

 examination of the strata. It is true that several 

 years ago human skeletons were discovered in a com- 

 pact calcareous rock in the island of Guadaloupe. A 

 mass of this rock, containing a pretty well preserved 

 human skeleton, but without the head, has been de- 

 posited in the British museum. The rock, on exami- 

 nation, proved to be a mere alluvial mass, formed of 

 pieces of coral, that appears to have been thrown up 

 on shore by the sea, and afterwards cemented together 

 by water impregnated with calcareous matter. This, 

 therefore, can be no proof of the ancient existence of 

 man, and the writer of this article considers himself 

 justified in concluding that the human race was not 

 coeval with the fossil genera and species. 



The study of fossil remains is one of the utmost 

 importance in geology. By it alone we are enabled I 



to form precise -notions concerning the history of the 

 earth. Had these been totally neglected, we could 

 never have imagined that successive eras, and a series 

 of different operations had taken place in the forma- 

 tion of the globe. By them alone we are assured 

 that the covering of this planet has not always been 

 the same, as it is obvious that before they were buried 

 in its depths they must have existed at the surface. 

 By them we learn that certain strata have been tran- 

 quilly deposited in a fluid mass ; that the variations 

 in the strata have corresponded with those of tho 

 fluid ; that the translation of this fluid occasioned their 

 denudation, and that this denudation has taken place 

 more than once. Nothing of this could have been 

 ascertained with any degree of certainty, but for the 

 study of fossil organic remains. 



FOSSORES (Latreille). An extensive sub-section 

 of hymenopterous insects belonging to the division 

 AciiL-ata, or those furnished with a sting in the females. 

 There are only two kinds of individuals in each 

 species, male and female, both of which are winged. 

 They are solitary in their habits, each species taking 

 upon itself the care of forming and provisioning, or, 

 at least, seeking a nest for its progeny. The legs are 

 formed only for walking or for burrowing ; the wings 

 are never folded longitudinally as in the wasps. In 

 our article ENTOMOLOGY we have figured the fore 

 leg of one of the burrowing species of this sub- 

 division, by means of which the females are enabled 

 to- excavate cells in the ground or in wood, in which 

 they then bury a certain quantity of other insects, 

 spiders, or larvue, which they have half stung to death, 

 which serve for the food of the larvae hatched from 

 the eggs deposited in the cells at the same lime. 

 These larvae are footless grubs of a fleshy consistence, 

 resembling a short worm or maggot: when arrived at 

 the full size they spin a silken cocoon, in which they 

 are transformed to pupa; : the perfect insect is 

 generally extremely active, feeding upon the nec- 

 tar of flowers. Some of the exotic species are of 

 very large size, and their stings are very painful. 

 Some of the species belonging to the sub-division are 

 not provided with organs for burrowing, and accord- 

 ingly are compelled, like the parasite bees, to deposit 

 their eggs in the already provisioned nests of other 

 species. M. le Cornte de Saint Fargeau was the first 

 author who noticed this parasitic connexion between 

 the species ; but by raising a theory upon too limited 

 observations, he considered that all the species whose 

 lejjs were destitute of the brush-like spines, were 

 necessarily parasitic. This theory was successfully 

 attacked by Mr. Shuckard, in the first number of tho 

 Transactions of the Entomological Society, by whom 

 it was shown that amongst the species destitute of 

 spines, many were wood-borers ; hence he proposed 

 the theory that those species, and those only, which 

 burrow in sand are furnished with spines ; subsequent 

 observations have, however, convinced the writer of 

 this article that Mr. Shuckard has likewise founded 

 his theory upon too limited observation, several 

 spineless "species having been detected in burrowing 

 in sand. 



This sub- section comprises the families Scoluda:, 

 Sapygidce, Sphcgidte, BembicidcE, Larndce, Nyssonida;, 

 and Crubronidtc (including the Cerccrides). To these 

 groups the MutUHdae must evidently be added, 

 which differ only in the apterous condition of the 

 females. 



FOTHERGILLIA (Linneeus). A genus of North 



