chap, vm.] ANTIQUITY OF INSECTS. 167 



now inhabiting Europe. A butterfly is also well preserved, with 

 all the markings of the wings ; and it seems to be a Junonia, a 

 tropical genus, though it may be a Vanessa, which is European, 

 but the fossil most resembles Indian species of Junonia. 



The Eocene formations seem to have produced no in- 

 sect remains ; but they occur again in the Upper Cretaceous 

 at Aix-la-Chapelle, where two butterflies have been found, 

 Cyllo sepulta and Satyrites Reynesii, both belonging to the Saty- 

 ridse, and the former to a genus now spread over Africa, India, 

 and Australia. 



A little earlier, in the Wealden formation of our own country, 

 numerous insects have been found, principally dragon flies (Libel- 

 lula, JEshna) ; aquatic Hemiptera ( Velia Hydrometrci) ; crickets 

 cockroaches, and cicadas, of familiar types. 



Further back in the Upper Oolite of Bavaria — which produced 

 the wonderful long-tailed bird, Archceopteryx — insects of all orders 

 have been found, including a moth referred to the existing genus 

 Sphinx. 



In the Lower Oolite of Oxfordshire many fossil beetles have 

 been found whose affinities are shown by their names : — Bupres- 

 tidium, Curculionidium, Blapsidium, Mclolonthidium, and Prio- 

 nidium ; a wing of a butterfly has also been found, allied to the 

 Brassolidse now confined to tropical America, and named Palm- 

 ontina oolitica. 



Still more remote are the insects of the Lias of Gloucester- 

 shire, yet they too can be referred to well-known family types — 

 Carabidse, Melolonthidse, Telephoridae, Elateridse, and Curculio- 

 nidse, among beetles; Gryllidse and Blattidae among Orthoptera; 

 with Libelhda, Agrion, JEshna, Ephemera, and some extinct 

 genera. When we consider that almost the only vertebruta of 

 this period were huge Saurian repliles like the Icthyosaurus, 

 Plesiosaurtts, and Dinosaurus, with the flying Pterodactyles ; 

 and that the great mass of our existing genera, and even fami- 

 lies, of fish and reptiles had almost certainly not come into exist- 

 ence, we see at once that types of insect-form are, proportionately, 

 far more ancient. At this remote epoch we find the chief family 

 types (the genera of the time of Linnaeus) perfectly differentiated 



