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710 | SPRATIGRAPHICAL GEOLOGY. — [Boox VI. 
The interest of this flora is heightened by the discovery of the 
fact that the primeval forests were not without the hum of insect 
life. The most ancient known relics of insect forms have been 
recovered from the Devonian strata of New Brunswick. They are all 
neuropterous wings, and have been referred by Mr. Scudder of Boston 
to four species combining a remarkable union of characters now 
found in distinct orders of insects. In one fragment he observed a 
structure which he could only compare to the: stridulating organ of 
some male Orthoptera. Another wing indicates the existence of a 
gigantic Ephemera, with a spread of wing extending to five inches. 
The existence of myriapods in the forests of this ancient period 
has recently been shown by Mr. B. N. Peach, who finds that the 
so-called Kampecaris, hitherto regarded as a larval form of isopod 
crustacean, really contains two genera of 
chilognathous myriapods, differing from other 
known forms, fossil and recent, in their less 
differentiated structure, each body segment 
being separate, and supplied with only one 
pair of walking legs. 
The water-basins of the Old Red Sand- 
stone were, on the whole, singularly devoid 
of life; at least, remains of it have been but 
meagrely preserved. The fauna consists 
almost wholly of fishes. Among these the 
Pteraspis survived for a while from Upper 


atc, Silurian times. With it there lived other 
ed Se members of the same sub-order of placoder- 
race matous ganoids, notably the curious saddler’s 
Vise knife-like Cephalaspis, the allied Auchenaspis, 
the Coccosteus, and Pterichthys (Fig. 332). 
The sub-order of Acanthodians attained its 
chief development in these lakes, the genera 
4 . Acanthodes, Diplacanthus, and Chetracanthus 
IG. 333.—PTERICHTHYS . eh? r 
CORNUTUS (AG.). being characteristic and abundant. The 
 Crossopterygide, so remarkable for the central 
scaly lobe of their fins and represented at the present time by 
Polypterus, swarmed in the waters, some of the most characteristic 
genera being Osteolepis, Diplopterus, Holoptychius, Glyptolepis, Pha- 
neropleuron, Glyptolemus, Glyptopomus. ‘The modern Ceratodus of 
the Queensland rivers had a closely allied representative in the 
abundant Dzpterus of the Old Red Sandstone lakes. The largest fish 
of the European basin was the Asterolepis, the cuirass-like cephalic 
shield of which sometimes reaches a length of twenty, with a breadth 
of sixteen inches. Probably more gigantic was the Dinichthys, already 
referred to as occurring in the Devonian rocks of North America, of 
which the head, encased in strong plates, attained a length of three 
feet, and was armed with a formidable apparatus of teeth. ‘ 
A few eurypterid crustacea occur, especially of the genera 

