I.-INTRODUCTION. 
The Palaeozoic rocks of Australia liavc liitlierto failed to yield any trace of 
Insect life. This is the more remarkable when we remember the very great 
extent of the Permo-Carboniferous Coal Measures of Eastern, and probably 
also Western Australia, and Tasmania, containing sediments eminently fitted 
for the preservation of Insect remains. 
Until recently the oldest-known Insect in the rocks of this Continent 
was a Libelluloid wing from the Cretaceous beds of the Elinders River, 
Central Queensland, described by Dr. Henry Woodward* JEsclina jlinders- 
ensis. This interesting and unique specimen was obtained by Mr. R. L. 
Jack, Queensland Government Geologist, about seven miles above Marathon 
Station, ou the river named, and is contained in a dark-chocolate limestone, 
associated Aiicella hiujliendensis, Etheridge, a bivalve very characteristic 
of that part of the Queensland Cretaceous Series. 
On this wing Dr. IVoodward makes the following remarks : — “ The 
very imperfect state of our specimen precludes our correlating it with confi- 
dence to any living genus, but sutficient is preserved to demonstrate that it 
is the posterior wing of a Neuropterous insect of the sub-erder Odonata, Eabr., 
and perhaps referable to the sub-family GojnphmcB, one genus of which, 
Austragomplius, de Selys, having five species, is characteristic of Australia 
and Tasmania.” 
Dr. IVoodAvard finds its nearest prototype in the wing of a Libelluloid 
insect from the fresh-Avater Purbeck Limestone of Durdlestone Bay, near 
SAvanage, Dorset, England. 
The only other remains previously known from an Australian locality 
are of Tertiary age, and Avere described by the late Mr. Charles Moore, f of 
Bath, England, from the Broken RiA^er, at Sydney Elat, near Uralla. 
The insects AA^ere obtained from a chocolate-coloured, micaceous, 
laminated marl, forming a bed ten feet thick, at a depth of about one hundred 
feet from the surface, and forming a portion of the Tertiary drifts Avorked at 
the above locality. The latter are probably of Pliocene age. 
* Gcol. Mag., 188J, I, p. 337, t. 11, f. 1. 
t “ Note on a PJant ami Insect Bed on the Kocty River, New Soutli Wales,” Quart. Jouni. Geol. Soc., 
1870, XXVI, p. 261. 
