648 Geological Society. 



PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES. 



GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



JaQuary 11th, 1911.— Prof. W. W. Watts, Sc.D., M.Sc, F.R.S., 

 President, in the Chair. 



The following communication was read : — 



' On a Collection of Insect-Remains from the South Wales 

 Coalfield.' By Herbert Bolton, F.R.S.E., F.G.S., Curator of 

 the Bristol Natural History Museum. 



The Author describes nine examples of insect-remains, all being, 

 with one exception, blattoid in character. Seven are described 

 as new species. Six of the specimens were obtained from the 

 horizon of the Mynyddislwyn Vein and Swansea Four-Foot Seam ; 

 two from shales associated with the Graigola Seam, and a 22-inch 

 seam occurring 40 yards below it ; while one specimen was found 

 in shales associated with the Rhondda No. 2 Seam, and therefore 

 on the same horizon as the example of Etoblattina ( Arcliimy- 

 lacris) woodward!, Bolton, previously described by the Author 

 in the ' Geological Magazine ' for 1910, p. 147. 



The whole of the insect-remains are referable to three horizons — 

 one at the base of the Upper Series of the Coal Measures, and two in 

 the upper part of the Pennant Series. Two indeterminate species 

 are referred to the genus Archimi/lacris, two to Hemimylacris, one 

 to ArcfiimyJacris (Schizohlatta), one to Archimi/lacris ( EtoUattina ) , 

 one to Gerablattiua ( AphtliorohJattina ), one to Orthomijlacris, and 

 one to LamproptiUa. The last-named genus is new to the British 

 Coal Measures. Attention is drawn to the association of the blattoid 

 remains with Cordaites leaves bearing the impressions of the tests 

 ot Spiro7'his pusillus. The suggestion is put forward that possibly 

 Carboniferous cockroaches were not only phytophagous in habit, 

 but frequented decaying Cordaites leaves in order to feed upon the 

 Spirorhis. 



The presence of Archimylacrid and Orthomylacrid forms, no 

 less than the ])resence of a species of LamproptiUa, is considered 

 indicative of a considerable advance in insect development in the 

 British Carboniferous beyond the more primitive palaeodictyopteran 

 types; while their abundance in the Pennant and Upper Series of the 

 South Wales Coalfield may justify the hope of finding more primitive 

 forms at a lower horizoij in the same coalfield. Their occurrence may 

 also be indicative of the remains of a terrestrial fauna somewhere 

 in the South Wales Coal Measures. 



