Miscellaneous. 



163 



species of which are found parasitic on marine animals ; and in the 

 same stone with it is a fossil Ophiura, to which, when living, it may 

 have been attached. Each of the three from Aix has eight legs ; 

 they are all probably freshwater spiders of the genus Argyroneta, 

 and two of them are of the same species. In the same freshwater 

 limestone with one of them is an impression resembling a Chelifer 

 or Book Scorpion, having the claws of a scorpion but not its tail. 



FOSSIL INSECTS. 



We noticed last year Mr. Brodie's discovery of the wing of a Li- 

 bellula and other insects in the Wealden freshwater formation near 

 Dinton, in the vale of Wardour, in Wiltshire. Mr. H. E. Strickland 

 has more recently found a very perfect fossil wing of another Dragon- 

 fly in the lias of Warwickshire, near Evesham, on which the opake 

 spot usually found at the anterior margin of the wing in Libellulidse 

 is distinctly marked. The nervures on this wing closely resemble 

 those on recent species, and approach most nearly to the genus 

 iEshna. The occurrence of Libellulidse has not hitherto been no- 

 ticed in any formation older than the lithographic stone of Solen- 

 hofen, in the upper region of the oolite series ; and the dis- 

 covery of a species so nearly allied to the existing genus iEshna 

 in the lias formation, where it is associated with reptiles differing 

 so widely from existing forms as the Ichthyosaurus and Plesiosaurus, 

 leads to curious speculations respecting the fauna of this early period. 



The discovery of land insects in strata that are, for the most part, 

 crowded with marine remains, is explained by supposing multitudes 

 of insects to have been occasionally drifted by tempests into the sea. 

 In the Proceedings of Geol. Society, vol. ii. p. 688, is a notice by 

 myself of a hitherto unique example of a large neuropterous wing 

 in the Stonesfield slate, a marine formation at the top of the in- 

 ferior oolite, more nearly allied to the Hemerobius than to any 

 other modern insect. With this Hemerobioid are found at Stones- 

 field abundant elytra of coleopterous insects, and the bones of in- 

 sectivorous marsupial quadrupeds and Pterodactyles. In the Mu- 

 seum of the University of Glasgow I saw, in September last, re- 

 mains of some small hymenopterous insects attached to fragments 

 of coal from the neighbourhood of that city, but of these no careful 

 examination had then been made. 



A large wing of a neuropterous insect, resembling the living Co- 

 rydalis of Carolina, in a nodule of clay iron ore, probably from the 

 coal-field of Staffordshire, has been figured by Mr. Murchison in his 

 ' Silurian System ' (Wood-cut 13, letter a, p. 105,) from a specimen 

 in the Museum of Mr. Mantell. 



FOSSIL RADIATA. 



The history of fossil radiated animals has, during the last year, 

 received a valuable accession from the publication, by Professor 

 Agassiz, of the second part of his description of the fossil Echino- 

 dermata of Switzerland*. 



The family of Cidarides forms the exclusive subject of this me- 



* Memoires Nouveaux de la Societe Helvetique des Sciences Natu relies, 

 vol. iv. 



M2 



