Scudder’s Fossil Insects of North America. 491 
extent identical with those from the Miocene of Alaska, but adds: 
‘““ Whether the age of these beds is Miocene, or somewhat older, 
may, however admit of doubt.” Apart from an uncharacteristic egg 
cocoon ofa spider, none of the insect remains can be regarded as 
identical with any found elsewhere. 
The other localities at which remains of insects have been found, 
though in smaller numbers, lie at no great distance apart to the 
south of Quesnel, and south of the Canadian Pacific Railway, near 
our own border. One of these localities is upon the Nicola River, 
two miles above its junction with the Coldwater, at the base of a 
series of beds containing coal. Another is on the north fork of the 
Similkameen River, three miles from its mouth; the beds here, on 
the bank of the river, “‘ include a layer of lignite about a foot thick, 
which rests on black, rather earthy, carbonaceous clays, and is over- 
lain by fifteen feet or more of very thinly bedded, almost paper like, 
yellow gray siliceous shales,” which contain plants and insects. 
The third is on Nine Mile Creek, flowing into Whipsaw Creek, a 
tributary of the Similkameen, where a small section of hard, 
laminated clays occurs with layers of softer arenaceous clays : 
Seven Species were obtained from the first named locality, five from 
second and four from the third. The Nicola locality is remarkable 
for yielding only Coleoptera and one of Hemiptera; while the 
Similkameen locality like Quesnel, affords us Hymenoptera, Diptera 
and Hemiptera—three species of the last—but no Coleoptera. There 
can be no doubt, Dr. Dawson informed me, “‘ that the specimens 
from the North Similkameen and Nine Mile Creek represent de- 
posits in different portions of a single lake. A silicifying spring 
probably thermal, must, however have entered the lake near the first 
named place, as evidenced by the character of some of the beds, in 
which fragments of plants, with a few fresh water shells, have been 
preserved.” The insects of each locality are specifically distinct from 
those of any of the others. As to their age, Dr. Dawson, the only 
geologist who has studied them, remarks that we shall ‘‘ probably 
err little in continuing to call the Tertiary deposits of the interior as 
a whole Miocene, and in corelating them with the beds attributed to 
the same period to the southward, in the basin lying east of the 
Sierra Nevada.” 
FOSSIL INSECTS FROM ONTARIO. 
*“Tnthe vicinity of Toronto and along the shore of Lake Ontario, 
Mr. George J. Hinde has discovered vegetable and animal remains 
in thin seams in clay beds which he regards as interglacial, lying as 
they do upon a morainic till of a special character and overlain by 
till of a another and quite distinct kind. His account of the locality 
and the reasons for his conclusions have been given by him in 
full.! 
1 Canadian Journal, New Series, vol. xv; 1887, pp 338-413. 
