Beviezvs — JDr. 8. S. Scudder — On Fossil Insects. 129- 



1. The volume opens with an essay on " the first discovered traces - 

 of Fossil Neiiropterous Insects in North America," and was read 

 before the Boston Society of Natural History, in January, 1865, 

 (published in 1866 with one plate). 



2. The second is on " the Carboniferous Myriapods preserved in 

 the Sigillarian stumps of Nova Scotia." 



3. Nest follows a short essay on "the early types of Insects; or 

 the origin and sequence of Insect-life in Paleeozoic Times." 



4. The fourth paper on " PalEeozoic Cockroaches," with a revision 

 of the species of both worlds, and an essay on their classification 

 (illustrated by five quarto plates), is one of Mr. Scudder's most 

 important contributions. 



At first glance at the plates it would appear as if the materials at 

 the author's disposal were better preserved and more abundant than 

 usually falls to the lot of any single student of fossil insects ; but 

 the figures occupying the first three plates out of the five illustrating 

 this paper, are copies from the plates of Germar, Goldenberg, Giebel, - 

 Heer, etc., of all the then known European forms (1879), the last 

 two only being drawn from original American specimens.^ 



It is doubtless a very great convenience to have the whole of the 

 forty-nine European forms redrawn and brought together thus for 

 comparison with the eighteen American species, but the complete 

 revision of all the European species, from the figures and descriptions 

 alone, must be a somewhat hazardous task without seeing the 

 original specimens as well. However, we may be very thankful to 

 Mr. Scudder for his scheme of classification, nor are we likely to 

 better it, for some time to come. 



The specimens figured are all detached wings, and the proposed 

 arrangement is based solely upon their neuration. 



5. The next Memoir is on " The Devonian Insects of New 

 Brunswick" (illustrated by Plate 7), first described and figured 

 (by Scudder) in a paper by Sir William Dawson in the Geol. Mag. 

 1867 (Vol. IV. pp. 385-388, PI. XVII. Figs. 1-5). 



6. The sixth Memoir is on the " Archipolypoda, a subordinal type 

 of spined Myriapods from the Carboniferous formation " (with four 

 plates).^ This Essay is particularly interesting to English pala3on- 

 tologists on account of the discovery of similar forms of spined 

 Myriapods in the English Coal-measures.^ 



7. The next paper is on " The Carboniferous Hexapod Insects of 

 Great Britain," and describes and figures (a) Brodia priscotincta, 

 Scudder, from a Clay Ironstone nodule of the Coal-measures, Tipton, 

 Staffordshire ; (originally described and figured (as a woodcut) in 

 Geol. Mag. Dec. II. Vol. VIII. p. 293, 1881). (6) Archoeoptilus ingens, 

 Scudder, a fragment of the base of the wing of a large Neuropterous 

 insect, from the Coal-measures near Chesterfield, Derbyshire, and 



1 Mem. Soc. Nat. Hist. Boston, 4to. vol. iii. pp. 23-134, pis. 2-6. 



- Originally published Mem. Eoston Soc. Nat. Hist. vol. iii. No. v. pp. 143-182, 

 pis. x-xiii. 1882. 



^ See H. Woodward, " On some Spined Myriapods from the Carboniferous Series 

 of England," Geol. Mag. Dec. III. Vol. IV. Pi. I. pp. 1-10, 1887. 



DECADE HI. — VOL. IX. NO. III. 9 



