Rev. P. B. Brodie — Eemarlcs on Fossil Insects. 167 



This view does away entirely with those theories according to 

 which England, etc., etc., were stripped of their verdure and their 

 living inhabitants and encased in a suit of frozen armour, and were 

 then re-invaded and re-peopled by fresh importations of plants and 

 animals which had meanwhile retired goodness knows where, and 

 which returned again goodness knows wlience, without having 

 varied, in a mode at once simple and astounding. 



The living plants and animals of these islands, with the exception 

 of a very few extinct forms, are virtually the same as those living 

 in the Mammoth age. It would have been strange indeed if this 

 identity had survived an extinction of life and re-colonization of 

 Britain. As a matter of fact, this extinction and this re-colonization 

 are unsupported by any induction from the facts of either Geology 

 or Natural Histor}^. They are, like many other scientific opinions, 

 conclusions necessitated by adopting a priori theories. Some plants 

 and some animals perished, no doubt, but the great bulk remained. 



In discarding this conclusion we are remitted to a more rational 

 one, namely, that the plants and animals found within our four seas, 

 save and except those introduced by human agency, either directly 

 or indirectly, and some waifs and strays, are the descendants of the 

 plants and animals which were living here in the Mammoth age, 

 which was the age of Great Glaciers, with which age the present 

 one is, in fact, perfectly continuous, the only break having been the 

 extinction of a few forms by the great catastrophe. This view is 

 not popular just now, but I have no doubt whatever that it will 

 presently'- prevail, and that its acceptance will clear away a great 

 deal of difficulty and misleading intricacy from our text books, not 

 only of Geology, but of Natural History. 



The view here urged in regard to the contemporaneous existence 

 of the Great Glaciers and a fertile champagne country side by side 

 in the last Geological age seems to me to best explain the facts. 



P.S. — I have just seen Mr. Stirrup's paper in the February 

 Number, pp. 80-82. I am bound to say I cannot follow his logic, 

 }ior can I understand what he is after. The facts he quotes from 

 Dall and others are well known. I do not dispute. What I do 

 dispute is the inference that they point to the Ice beds being older 

 than the Mammoth beds. Whatever their age, it seems to be quite 

 certain that they must be the result of infiltration, unless trees can 

 grow on blue ice and Mammoths bi'owse on snow. 



IV. — Further Eemarks on t3e Tertiary (Eocene) Insects from 

 THE Isle of Wight, and on others from the Lias and 

 Coal-Measures. 



By the Rev. P. B. Brodie, M.A., F.G.S. 



I WISH to make some corrections and additions to my recent 

 paper on the Tertiar}'^ insects from Gurnet Bay, and to mention 

 others from older formations. I have recently had an unexpected 

 and gratifying visit from my friend Mr. Scudder, the eminent 

 American palaeo-entomologist, and if I had been aware sooner 



