rnOCEEDINGS OF THE THIHD ENTOMOLOGICAL MEETING 903 



75.-INDIAN FOSSIL INSECTS. 



Bij T. Bainbeigge Fletcher, R.N., F.L.S., F.E.S., F.Z.S., Imperial 

 Entomologist. 



(Plates 164-166.) 



In his Annual Address* some years ago a President ot the Entomo- 

 logical Society of London remarked (I do not pretend to quote the 

 exact words) that one of the most interesting chapters of the great 

 book of Nature, could we but read it, would be that dealing with the 

 various forms of insect life which have disappeared from the World 

 without Man having ever been even aware of their very existence. This 

 remark applied more particularly to those present-day forms of insect 

 life which are being rendered extinct by the advance of civilization in 

 almost all regions of the Earth. But how much more true is such a 

 remark when applied to the innumerable species of insects which have 

 had their existence in the past before such a study as Entomology was 

 even adumbrated. Innumerable as seems the' number of forms of 

 insect life living at the present day, easily outnumbering in species all 

 the other terrestrial animals added together, this number is yet but a 

 small fraction of those which have lived in the past and become extinct. 

 Most of these extinct species have passed away without leaving any 

 direct trace save in the very rare cases in which they have been preserved 

 in a fossil state. 



In Europe and America and other parts of the World thousands 

 of species of fossil insects have been found and described, although 

 comparatively little attention has been paid to this branch of Ento- 

 mology by either entomologists or geologists ; but from India, until 

 within the last two or three years, practically no fossil insects had been 

 described at all. Indeed, in my book on Smith Indian Insects, I stated 

 (page 18) that no fossil insects appeared to be as yet known from India. 

 That statement, however, was not quite accurate, as at the time I was 

 unaware of a paper on fossil insects from Nagpur -f and of a few scattered 

 notes in Medlicott and Blanford's Manual of the Geology of India. And 

 since then numerous fossil insects from Burmese amber have been des- 

 cribed by Professor T. D. A. Cockerell in five papers.J so that quite 



* Proc. Ent. Soc. London 1887, pp. Ixxiv-lxxv. 



t Notes on some Fossil Insects from Nagpur, by Andrew Murray {Qrli/. Journ. Geol. 

 Soc. XVI (1860), pp. 182-185, t. 10, ff. 66-70). 



i (1) Insects in Burmese Amber; Amer. Journ. Science XLII, 13-3-138 (Aug. 1916). 



(2) Fossil Insects; Ann. Entl. Soc. Amer. X 1-22 (1917). 



(3) Arthropods in Burmese Amber ; Psyche XXIV 40-45 (April 1917). 



(4) Insects in Burmese Amber; Ann. Entl. Soc. Amer. X*323-329 (1917). 



(5) Descriptions of Fossil Insects ; Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash. XXX 79-81 (May 1917). 



