532 The American Naturalist. [June, 
ENTOMOLOGY ' 
Tertiary Tipulidæ.—Another important contribution to our, 
knowledge of fossil insects has just been made by Mr. S. H. Scudder, 
whose Tertiary Tipulidz’ isin many respects one of the most satisfactory 
memoirs upon a fossil family that we have. It is remarkable 
that a large proportion of the several hundred specimens of these delicate 
insects collected in the famous Florissant deposits have not only “ the 
venation of the wings completely represented, with all their most 
delicate markings, but also the slender and fragile legs with their 
clothing of hair and spurs, and to some degree at least the antenne and 
palpi. Even the facets of the compound eyes are often preserved as in 
life.” The nine lithograph plates accompanying this paper show very 
Well the correctness of these statements. 
Mr. Scudder describes twenty-nine new species belonging to ten 
genera of Limnobine and twenty-two new species belonging to five 
genera of Tipuline. The general results of his study are summarized 
as follows: 
1. The general facies of the Tipulid fauna of our western tertiaries 
is American, and agrees best with the fauna of about the same latitude 
in America, as far as we are at present acquainted with it. 
2. All the species are extinct, and though the Gosuite Lake and the 
ancient lacustrine basin of Florissant were but little removed from 
each other, and the deposits of both are presumably of oligocene-age, 
not a single instance is known of the occurrence of the same species 12 
the two basins. The Tipulid fauna of the Gosuite Lake, however, is a8 
yet very little known, and it should be added that the few described 
species are in no instance the same at Green River, Wyo., and White 
River, Colo., both localities in the same ancient lake basin. 
3. No spevies are identical with any of the few described Europea? 
tertiary Tipulide. 
» 4. Restricting ourselves to the Florissant basin, from the paucity of 
material in the Gosuite fauna, it will be noticed that a remarkable pro 
portion of genera (eight out of fifteen) are not yet recognized among 
the living, these genera including about one-third of the species. 
‘Edited by Clarence M. Weed, New Hampshire College, Durham, N. H. 
* Tertiary Tipulide, With Special Reference to those of Florissant, Colorado, 
By Samuel H. Scudder. Proc. Amer. Phil. Society, vol. XXXII. Reprinted 
April 4, 1894. 
