chap, vni.] 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- 

 Ivla, ^Eshna) ; 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, Areliazopteryx — insects of all orders 

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

 Spliinx. 



In the Lower Oolite of Oxfordshire many fossil beetles have 

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

 tidium, Curculionidium, Blapsidium, Melolonthidium, and Prio- 

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

 Brassolidae now confined to tropical America, and named Palw- 

 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, Telephoridse, Elateridse, and Curculio- 

 nidse, among beetles; Gryllidae and Blattidae among Orthoptera; 

 with Libellula, Agrion, ' JEshna, Ephemera, and some extinct 

 genera. When we consider that almost the only vertebrata of 

 this period were huge Saurian repliles like the Iethyomurus, 

 Plesiosaurus, 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 Linna?us) perfectly differentiated 



