President s Annual Address. 
27 
Librarian of Harvard University, in bis address to the Cam- 
bridge Entomological Club.* 
In connection with this subject I would call your attention 
to the great progress which has been made in the last ten 
years in our knowledge of fossil insects, and especially those 
of the Palaeozoic rocks, through the observations of Dr. 
Scudder, Ales. Brongniart, and a number of German investi- 
gators. 
You are aware that naturalists divide the modern insects 
into seven orders. Three of these orders are regarded as 
belonging to a higher series than the others, as they undergo 
a more complete metamorphosis, and differ also in other 
respects. These higher orders we may consider to be repre- 
sented by bees, the butterflies, and the two-winged flies. The 
remains of such insects are comparatively modern, for they 
have not been found in the Palaeozoic rocks, though numbers 
are known from the Tertiary formations. 
In the lower series, containing four orders, the metamor- 
phosis of the individual is incomplete, and these have all been 
traced back to the Palaeozoic formations. To these lower 
orders belong the Devonian insects of St. John, and the 
numerous insects found in the coal measures of Germany, 
England, Canada, and the United States. 
Until recently only two of these lower orders were known 
in the Palaeozoic rocks, but late discoveries have added the 
other two, so that now the whole four orders, which may be 
represented by the dragon-flies, the grasshoppers, the beetles, 
and the bugs, are found to have had representatives living at 
some time between the Silurian and Permian ages. 
The greatest addition to our knowledge of these old insects 
has arisen from discoveries made at Mazon Creek, in Illinois, 
and at Oommentry, in France. At the latter place have been 
found gigantic may-flies and ‘^walking-sticks,’’ besides great 
numbers of cockroaches and other insects. Six hundred 
specimens of insects have been found here, and are now being 
studied by Alexander Brongniart. 
* The Work of a Decade upon Fossil Insects, p. 288. 
