1863.] FISHER LEXDEX BRICK-PIT. 399 



which may possibly belong to an ordinary Coccinella. Generically 

 perhaps some of them may be, though at least two, unless I am 

 much mistaken, cannot be referred to any genus now inhabiting the 

 British Isles. I say two ; but I believe that, even of the few I have 

 seen, the number is greater. Without more data it would be scarcely 

 safe to speculate much as to the climate which such species would 

 indicate. But so far as I am able to judge, if there were any differ- 

 ence from that which now obtains, I should be inclined to suppose it 

 to have been warmer, and not the reverse. Thus Cossyphus (and I 

 can scarcely be mistaken as to that Insect) does not now occur in Eng- 

 land at all, indeed not even I believe in Central Europe, but in Medi- 

 terranean latitudes. The existence, in abundance, of a large metallic 

 Curculio, or anything else so gorgeously cyaneous as to have trans- 

 mitted even a respectable tint to our times, is certainly more sug- 

 gestive of a warm climate than of a cold one. I do not think there 

 can be much doubt that a warmer temperature than what at present 

 obtains is indicated by these few forms ; though at the same time I 

 am well aware that it is possible to be mistaken as to this, because 

 some of the Alpine (and therefore Boreal) species assume the brilliant 

 metallic hues and somewhat large size of insects of more southern 

 latitudes. Still I do not believe such to be the explanation in the 

 present case, but exactly the reverse ; more particularly if I am not 

 mistaken in the genus Cossyphus, which I imagine will hardly be 

 met with now-a-days north of the Pyrenees." 



Mr. Wollaston's opinion seems, at any rate, to lead to the conclusion 

 that there was a higher summer- temperature than we now have in 

 England ; and if, as is generally believed, our Island was at that 

 period annexed to the Continent, such a circumstance, together with 

 more rigorous winters, would be natural. But the facts, as inter- 

 preted by him, seem to suggest that the cosmical cooling of the 

 glacial age had passed away *. 



Mr. Wollaston's opinion as to the diversity of the Lexden Insects 

 from recent British species is singularly in contrast to the statement 

 that the Insects of the Forest-bed of Norfolk, and also those of Mun- 

 desley, are of recent British species. A change of climate from the 

 already cold preglacial era to a warmer summer-temperature might 

 cause the introduction of more southern types, and might account 

 for the insect-forms of the Forest-bed coming nearer to those of the 

 present day. But this would not explain the case of Mundesley, 

 where the deposit is supposed to be of the same age as that of Hoxne, 

 and probably of Lexden. However, I may be permitted to remark 

 that, apart from Mr. Wollaston's high authority in any question of 

 this kind, it must be remembered that it is much safer for an ento- 

 mologist to pronounce that a portion of an Insect is unlike anything 



* Captain Godwin- Austen's account of the former extension of Glaciers in 

 the Himalaya (if that extension was contemporary with our Glacial Period) 

 seems to prove that the phenomenon was general, at least in the northern hemi- 

 sphere. See Report of the British Association Meeting at Cambridge, 1862, 

 Transactions of the Sections, p. 67. Dr. Hooker's observation that the cedars 

 of Lebanon grow on old moraines confirms this view ; see Tyndall's 'Heat con- 

 sidered as a mode of motion,' p. 191. 



