Vol. 67.] INSECT-REMAINS FROM THE SOUTH WALES COALFIELD. 140 



4. On a Collection of Insect -Remains from the South Wales 

 Coalfield. By Herbert Bolton, F.R.S.E., F.G.S., Curator of 

 the Bristol Natural History Museum. (Read January 11th, 

 1911.) 



[Plates VII-X.] 



Contexts. 



Page 



I. Introduction 149 



II. Geological Horizons 151 



III. Description of the Specimens 152 



IV. General Observations 172 



I. Introduction. 



I am indebted to the courtesy of the Director of H.M. Geological 

 Survey, for the opportunity of examining and describing an 

 interesting suite of blattoid remains obtained by the officers of 

 that Survey from the South Wales Coalfield. 



Insect-remains of Carboniferous age are so rare in this country 

 that the finding of no less than nine specimens, three of them with 

 their counterparts, constitutes an event of considerable palseonto- 

 logical interest. The South Wales Coalfield has thus yielded more 

 examples and more species than all other British coalfields together. 

 All the specimens, with one exception, are blattoid in character. 



The total number of fossil cockroaches known from the Carboni- 

 ferous is now great, and nearly all the numerous genera and species 

 are founded upon the anterior wings or tegmina alone. Only 

 once in this country, so far as I am aware, have larval stages been 

 recognized. 1 



The number of specimens and of species recorded from the 

 British Coal Measures is singularly small, the great bulk of known 

 forms occurring in Continental and North American coalfields. 

 Dr. Henry Woodward, 2 in quoting S. H. Scudder's 3 census of 

 blattoid forms, mentions 14 genera and 69 species as recorded 

 from all Carboniferous sources. 



He also mentions thatMiall & Denny 4 quote Scudder as recording 

 the number of Palaeoblattariae at 70 species. Scudder was followed 

 by Dr. E. H. Sellards, 5 who took a broad survey of the whole 



1 H. Woodward, 'On the Discovery of the Larval Stage of a Cockroach, 

 Ettoblattina peachii' Geol. Mag. dec. iii, vol. iv (1887) p. 433. 



2 ' Some Hew British Carboniferous Cockroaches' Ibid. p. 49. 



3 'Palaeozoic Cockroaches: a Complete Eevision of the Species of both 

 Worlds, with an Essay towards their Classification' Mem. Boston Soc. Nat. 

 Hist. vol. iii, pt. 1 (1879) pp. 23-134 & pis. ii-vi. 



4 ' Structure & Life-History of the Cockroach, Periplaneta orientalis ' 

 London, 1886, 8vo. 



5 ' Study of the Structure of Palaeozoic Cockroaches, with Descriptions of 

 New Forms from the CoalMeasures ' Amer. Journ. Sci. ser. 4, vol. xviii (1904) 

 pp. 113-34, 213-27 & pi. 



