TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION C. 567 



MONDAY, AUGUST 6. 



The followinpf Papers and Report were read : — 



1. Fossil Arthropods oj the Coal- Formation. 

 By Dr. H. Woodward, F.R.S. 



In the Coal Measures of England, Wales, and Scotland there occur, in many 

 areas, bands of shale with layers of clay-ironstone nodules, bearing various minera' 

 names, such as ' Pennystone ' (ironstone), ' White flat measures,' ' Gubbins,' 

 ' Crawstone bands,' &c. 



They occupy more than one horizon in the Coal Measures, and, although alike 

 in their fauna, they cannot be of the same age stratigraphically. 



These nodules have long been Icnown to geologists, for when split open they 

 sometimes contain the remains of fishes, crustaceans, insects, myriopods, arachnida, 

 scorpions, king-crabs, leaves of Neuropteris, branches of Lepidodendron, fruits 

 of Lepidostrobus, and shells of Condaria, Szc. 



In Buckland's ' Bridgewater Treatise, 1836,' we find one of the earliest instances 

 recorded of what was supposed, at the time, to be a coleopterous insect, since 

 described by me as Eophrynus Prestviri, an arachnid,^ from the ' Pennystone 

 nodule bed, Coalbrook Dale, Shropshire. 



Buckland also mentions that Dr. G. Mantell had discovered, in a similar 

 nodule from Coalbrook Dale, the wing of a neuropterous insect, named Corydalis 

 Brongniarti!^ 



In 1836, Mr. Joseph Prestwich, jun. (afterwards Sir Joseph Prestwich), pub- 

 lished his historical paper * On the Geology of Coalbrook Dale.' ' 



In plate 12 he figiires lAmulus (afterwards named Prestwichia) anthrax, 

 L. {Prestwichia') rotundata, and Belliniirus bellulun { = L. trilobitoides), and Apus 

 dubius, Anthrapalaemon Grossartii (Salter). 



The Rev. P. B. Brodie (in his * Fossil Insects ') figures a supposed fossil cater- 

 pillar of the genus Bomhyx, from the Coal Measures (now preserved in the Hope 

 Collection at Oxford) ; it is really a myriapod, Euphoberia anthrax. 



Dr. Buckland also figures several remains of fossil scorpions from the coal ot 

 Bohemia, which have since been more fully made known, together with other 

 fossil Arachnida from that country, by Dr. Anton Fritsch, of Prague.* 



M. Charles Brongniart's memoir on the Fossil Insects from the Coal Measures 

 of Commentry (Dept. Allier, France) has revealed the richness of this period in 

 air-breathing, tracheated winged insects, comprising Neuroptera, Orthoptera, and 

 Hemiptera. 



Dr. Goldenberg early described the Coal Measure insects of Saarbruck, in 

 Rhenish Prussia. 



Mr. S. H. Scudder, ihe eminent American entomologist, has also added 

 enormously to our knowledge of the fossil insects of the Palteozoic Rocks of the 

 TJnited States. 



During the past thirty years or more I have myself contributed various papers 

 on Coal Measure insects, which I need not detail here.^ 



The Cockroach {Blatta) is most abundant in the Coal Measures. The Dragon- 

 flies attained an enormous size (28 in. across). The Fire-flies (Fulgoridne). . . . 

 The Ephemeridae, and many Hemiptera. . . . All these insects were either vege- 

 table-feeding or predaceous in their habits. (Coleoptera, Lepidoptera, and Hymeno- 

 ptera are absent at this early period. There were no honey-flowers in the coal 

 period. 



Many kinds of Arachnida, besides scorpions, have been met with ; also 

 nnmerous species of myriapode. 



'1871 Geol. Maci; p. 385, pi. 11. 



- Wonders of Geology, 1839, p. 680. 



' Trans. Genl. Soc. tond., vol. v. 1840. 



* Fritsch. Palrlozoisclte Arachniden, Prag 1904. 



' Q. J. Geol. Soc. ;lTrang. Glasgow Geol. Soc; Geol. Mag., &c. 



