505 
Mr. J. E. Gray to be nearly allied to the genus Nymphon, the living 
species of which are found parasitic on marine animals; and in the 
same stone with it is a fossil Ophiura, to which, when living, it may 
have been attached. Each of the three from Aix has eight legs; 
they are all probably freshwater spiders of the genus Argyroneta, 
and two of them are of the same species. In the same freshwater 
limestone with one of them is an impression resembling a Chelifer 
or Book Scorpion, having the claws of a scorpion but not its tail. 
FOSSIL INSECTS. 
We noticed last year Mr. Brodie’s discovery of the wing of a Li- 
bellula and other insects in the Wealden freshwater formation near 
Dinton, in the vale of Wardour, in Wiltshire. Mr. H. E. Strickland 
has more recently found a very perfect fossil wing of another Dragon- 
fly in the lias of Warwickshire, near Evesham, on which the opake 
spot usually found at the anterior margin of the wing in Libellulide 
is distinctly marked. The nervures on this wing closely resemble 
those on recent species, and approach most nearly to the genus 
fishna. The occurrence of Libellulide has not hitherto been no- 
ticed in any formation older than the lithographic stone of Solen- 
hofen, in the upper region of the oolite series; and the dis- 
covery of a species so nearly allied to the existing genus A‘shna 
in the lias formation, where it is associated with reptiles differing 
so widely from existing forms as the Ichthyosaurus and Plesiosau- 
rus, leads to curious speculations respecting the fauna of this early 
period. 
The discovery of land insects in strata that are, for the most part, 
crowded with marine remains, is explained by supposing multitudes 
of insects to have been occasionally drifted by tempests into the sea. 
In the Proceedings of our Society, vol. ii. p. 688, is a notice by 
myself of a hitherto unique example of a large neuropterous wing 
in the Stonesfield slate, a marine formation at the top of the in- 
ferior oolite, more nearly allied to the Demerobius than to any 
other modern insect. With this Hemerobioid are found at Stones- 
field abundant elytra of coleopterous insects, and the bones of in- 
sectivorous marsupial quadrupeds and Pterodactyles. In the Mu- 
seum of the University of Glasgow I saw, in September last, re- 
mains of some small hymenopterous insects attached to fragments 
of coal from the neighbourhood of that city, but of these no carefui 
examination had then been made. 
A large wing of a neuropterous insect, resembling the living Co- 
rydalis of Carolina, in a nodule of clay iron ore, probably from the 
coal-field of Staffordshire, has been figured by Mr. Murchison in his 
‘ Silurian System ’ (Wood-cut 13, letter a, p.105,) from a specimen 
in the Museum of Mr. Mantell. 
FOSSIL RADIATA. 
The history of fossil radiated animals has, during the last year, 
received a valuable accession from the publication, by Professor 
