CHAP. Via.] 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 bo a Va7iessa, 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, 

 Ci/llo 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, JEslin<:C)\ aquatic Hemiptera {Vclia Hydromdra) ; crickets 

 cockroaches, and cicadas, of familiar types. 



Further back in the Upper Oolite of Bavaria — which produced 

 the wonderful long-tailed bird, Arc'Jircopteryx — insects of all orders 

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

 S23kinx. 



In the Lower Oolite of Oxfordshire many fossil beetles have 

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

 tidiurti, Curculionidium, Bkqmdivni, Melolonthidium, and Prio- 

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

 Brassolidse now confined to tropical America, and named Pcdce- 

 ontina oolitica. 



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

 shire, yet they too can be referred to well-known family tA'pes — 

 Carabidoe, Melolonthidai, Telephoridse, Elateridsp, and Curculio- 

 nidse, among beetles; Gryllidre and Blattidae among Orthoptera ; 

 with Libcllula, Agrion, jEshna, Ephemera, and some extinct 

 genera. When we consider that almost the only vertebrata of 

 this period were huge Saurian repliles like the Icthyosavrus, 

 Plesiosavrv^, and Dinomvrvfi, 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 



