4 FOSSIL INSECTS OF THE BRITISH COAL MEASURES. 



phalian and Steplmnian stages of the Coal Measures, the fauna with which they 

 are most often associated in this country may indicate a greater age, as it is known 

 to occur as low down as the Calciferous Series of Scotland. Any statement, 

 therefore, of the range in time of British Palaeozoic insects based on the present 

 known forms may have to be set aside by later discoveries. 



The fauna with which fossil insects are usually associated in Great Britain is 

 one in which arachnids and certain of the more primitive arthropods are the 

 dominant forms. Arachnids are kno\\n to occur in the Calciferous Sandstone 

 Series of Scotland at Redhall, near Slateford, Edinburgh, and in the Cement-stone 

 Group of the Lower Carboniferous at Langholme, Dumfriesshire (1911, Pocock, 

 ' Mon. Pal. Soc.,' p. 18), and elsewhere, the genus Archaeoctonus being represented by 

 A. glaber and A. tiiberculatus, and the genus Cycloplitlialmus by C. euyli/ptus at 



Redhall, Blair Point, near Dysart, and Cramon near Edinburgh. 



No insect-remains are known from any of these horizons, but if the faunal 



association seen in the Coal Measures is a trustworthy guide, they may be looked 



for with some prospect of success. 



The faunal association existing in the " Soapstone Bed " of the Lower Coal 



Measures at Carre Keys, Colne, Lancashire (1905, Bolton, ' Geol. Mag. ' [5], vol. ii), 



is so similar in character to the typical insect-fauna elsewhere, that it is likely 



that insects lived in the Lower Coal Measure period in Lancashire. 



This faunal association at Carre Heys is as follows, and may be compared 



with the faunal association in which insects have been found to occur in other 



coalfields : 



PISCES. 



Hybodopsis wardi, Barkas. 

 Acanthodes wardi, Egerton. 

 Elonichthys aitkeni, Iraq. 



AMPHIBIA. 



Eugyrinus ivildi (A. S. Woodw.). 

 Microsaurian remains. 



ARTHKOPODA. 



Pygocephalus cooperi, Huxley. 

 Anthrapalxmon serratus, Woodw. 



,, woodwarcU, Etheridge. 



traquairi, Peach. 



Prestwichia rotundata, Woodw. 

 Architarbus subovalis, Woodw. 

 Euphoberia browni, Woodw. 

 Xylobius monilifer, Woodw. 



The oldest known fossil insect in the British Carboniferous appears to be a 

 fragmentary wing (Genentomum subacutum), described by the author from shales 

 at a depth of 637 feet below the Bedminster Great Vein in the Bristol Coalfield, 

 and therefore at a considerable depth below the Pennant Grit. 



Pseudofouquea cambrensis (Allen) was obtained from the top of the Four-foot 

 Seam in the Lower Coal Measures at the Llanbradach Colliery near Cardiff ; while 

 the shales over the No. 2 Rhondda Seam have yielded a wing-fragment of 

 Bolloniella temiitegminata (Bolton) ; and the shales over the Graigola Seam have 

 yielded the wings of two Blattoids, Hemimylacris convexa and Orthomylacris 

 lanceolata. 



