136 FOSSIL INSECTS OF THE BRITISH COAL MEASURES. 



The abdomen is in excellent preservation, and has several features of interest. 

 It is 12 mm. in length, diminishing from a breadth of 10 mm. across the body and 

 expanded epimera to 3*5 mm. across the ninth segment. The central axis of the 

 abdomen is more convex than the lateral epimera, and the middle line is slightly 

 rido-ed. The abdomen forms about one-third of the total breadth, being -i mm. 

 wide in the first segment, diminishing to 1*5 mm. on the ninth segment. The tenth 

 segment is missing. 



The epimera are broad, with slightly thickened posterior edges. From the 

 posterior dorsal margins of the first to fourth segments arise thin plate-like 

 expansions. These pass back over the succeeding two segments, showing ragged 

 edges, as if they had a greater extension during life, and had since been partially 

 torn away. The precise relation of these structures to the segments is not quite 

 clear. On the right side of the first, second and third segments, these processes 

 seem to emerge from beneath the hinder edges of the terga. If they do not, but 

 are continuous with the hinder edge, they are yet distinct from the latter, as the 

 suture-line between the adjacent terga can be traced outwards along the front edge 

 of the epimera, and if the two are united this furrow may have functioned as a 

 joint. 



The undeveloped wings, scarcely wider than the pronotum, and the broad 

 epimera of the abdomen, clearly indicate the larval condition of the specimen. 

 It must be more advanced towards the adult stage than Leptoblattina exilis, 

 "Woodw., from the Coal Measures of Coseley, Staffordshire, as it differs considerably 

 in the greater breadth of the abdomen and the development of the epimera. 



In size (Blattoidea) peachi is two-thirds the length of such an adult form as 

 Aphthoroblattina johnsoni (Woodw.), and as size is fairly well correlated with 

 development in Blattoids, Ave may assume that the insect had not fully reached 

 the nymph stage. This conclusion seems to be also confirmed by comparison with 

 the wing-length of L. exilis, where the wings are double the length of the 

 pronotum. 



The absence of determinable details in the wings prevents any successful 

 attempt to assign the specimen to a position in any accepted classification. The 

 most that can be said is, that the great breadth of the pronotum, as contrasted 

 with the length, would seem to indicate a relationship with the Mylacrida?. 



Leptoblattina exilis, Woodward. Plate IX, figs. 7, 8. 



1887. Leptoblattina calls, Woodward, Geol. Mag. [3], vol. iv, p. 56, pi. ii, figs. 2, 3. 

 1906. (Blattoidea) exilis, Handlirsch, Die Fossilen Insekten, p. 173, pi. xvii, figs. 16, 17. 



Type. — Nearly perfect larval blattoid in an ironstone nodule; British Museum, 

 Johnson Collection (no. 1065). 



