GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA. 



CONTRIBUTIONS TO CANADIAN PALAEONTOLOGY. 



■VOLXJOVEE II. 



OAIsTADIAI^ FOSSIL II^SEOTS. 



By Samuel H. Scudder. 

 2. The Coleoptera hitherto found fossil in Canada. 



Coleoptera have been found fossil in seven distinct localities in Canada 

 and at three very different horizons, viz., in Post-pliocene deposits (Scar- 

 boro', Ontario, and Green's Creek, Gloucester, Ontario), the Tertiary 

 series proper and probably its lower half (the four localities in British 

 Columbia frorn which fossil insects are known), and the Cretaceous rocks 

 (Millwood, Manitoba). The last has yielded but a single species, now 

 first described — a Curculionid. The lower Tertiary rocks have fourteen 

 species, belonging to as many as eight families, only the Chrysomelidse, 

 Buprestidse and Elateridse having more than one each. The Post-pliocene 

 deposits have proved the most prolific with thirty-two species, though 

 here only seven families are represented^ of which the Carabidse and Sta- 

 phylinidfe, but especially the former, very largely preponderate. The 

 greatest interest attaches to the interglacial locality near Scarboro', Ont., 

 which alone has yielded twenty-nine species*, and is the largest assem- 

 blage of insects ever found in such a deposit anywhere. These clays have 

 been studied and their fossils collected by Dr. G. J. Hindet, who sets 

 forth the reasons why he regards them as interglacial, lying as they do 

 upon a morainal till of a special character and overlain by till of a distinct 

 kind. The elytra and other parts of beetles found by him represent five 

 families and fifteen genera ; they are largely Carabidse, there being half- 

 a-dozen species each of Platynus and Pterostichus, and species also of 

 Patrobus, Bembidium, Loricera and Elaphrus. 



The next family in importance is the Staphylinidse, of which there are 

 fiveo'enera, Geodromicus, Arpedium, Bledius, Oxyporus and Lathrobium, 

 each with a single species. Hydrophilidse are represented by Hydrochus 

 and Helophorus, each with one species, and the Chrysomelid^ by two 

 species of Donacia. Finally a species of Scolytidse must have made the 

 borings under the bark of juniper described below. 



* This statement includes four species (Jlydrochus amict(i.s, Helophorus rigescens, 

 Pterostichus dormitans, and Be^nUdium fragmentum), found byDr. Hinde near Cleveland, 

 Ohio on the shores of Lake Erie, in clay beds very similar to those found near Scarboro', 

 on the shores of Lake Ontario, but not found at Scarboro' itself. They undoubtedly 

 belone to the same category. 



t cin Journ. Sc, N.S., xv, 388-413 (1887). 



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