334 Corresjjondence — Prof. T. G. Bonney. 



Dr. H. B. Geinitz, Dr. Goldenberg, Dr. Hagen, Professor Liudstroni, 

 Dr. Novak, Mr. B. N. Peach, Dr. Sterzel, and others, the author 

 stated that at the date of his last paper (March, 1879), only 103 

 fossil insects from the Carboniferous rocks of the whole world were 

 known ; but that during the last five years a large number had been 

 discovered, including about 1400 from the Coal-measures of Com- 

 meutry, France ; a few from Saarbriick, Klein Opitz, Lugau, and 

 elsewhere in Germany ; and a considerable number from various 

 parts of the North American continent. Such of the specimens as 

 had yet been determined were then enumerated, some of the most 

 remarkable forms were referred to in detail, and attention was drawn 

 to their affinities with existing types. According to M. Brongniart 

 the Commentry fossils included about 40 types, some of which 

 appeared allied to representatives of existing genera of Eemiptera, 

 Neuroptera, Pseudo-Neuroptera, and OrtJioptera. On the other hand, 

 many of these fossils apparently belonged to some synthetic or 

 homogeneous types, uniting in themselves characteristics of Neurop- 

 tera and OrtJioptera, or Neuroptera and Hemiptera, and proving that 

 at this early period the differentiation of most of the existing groups 

 had hardly commenced. 



Attention was then called to the discovery, last year, of fossil 

 Scorpions in the Upper Silurian of the Isle of Gotland and Scotland, 

 and of the wing of a Cockroach in the Middle Silurian of Jurques . 

 Calvados, France. Prior to these discoveries, no remains of terres- 

 trial animals had been obtained from any strata older than the 

 Devonian, and the result of their discovery in Silurian strata was to 

 leave the Insects the oldest known class of land animals, and the 

 Cockroaches the oldest known family of insects. 



The paper concluded with a summary of the results of recent 

 discoveries, and it was stated that the evidence afforded by Paleeon- 

 tology was, as far as it went, in support of the views as to the origin 

 of insects, and the order of succession on the earth of the various 

 groups, arrived at by Dr. Packard and others from a study of the 

 embryology of the class. No evidence had however yet been 

 obtained of the existence of any earlier forms connecting the Insecta 

 with those lower groups from which they are believed to have 

 originated. 



coiaiaiEsiPOisrzDEisrciE]. 



THE ENSTATITIC LAVAS OF EYCOTT HILL. 

 SiK, — Mr. F. Eutley, in his letter on the " Enstatitic Lavas of 

 Eycott Hill," is not quite correct in some of his statements. He 

 asserts that when the late Mr. Clifton Ward wrote his Memoir (m 

 the Geology of the northern part of the Lake District, the name 

 Andesite was not in use except as a synonym for andesine felspar. 

 To this I demur — the rock, for instance, is described in my edition 

 of Zirkel's Mikroscopische BescJiaffenheit, which is dated 1873, my 

 copy of the Memoir being dated 1876. It is even mentioned in 

 Lawrance's translation of Cotta (1866). Further, I remember 



