FOSSIL SPIDERS. 
405 
Still further, the actual provisions for restrain- 
ing this Insect class within due bounds, by the 
controlling agency of the carnivorous Arachnidans 
would lead us to expect that Spiders and Scor- 
pions were employed in similar service during 
the successive geological epochs, in which we 
have evidence of the abundant growth of terres- 
trial vegetables. 
Some recent discoveries confirm the argument 
from these analogies, by the test of actual obser- 
vation. The two great families in the higher 
order of living Arachnidans (Pulmonarise) are 
Spiders and Scorpions ; and we have evidence to 
shew that fossil remains of both these families 
exist in strata of very high antiquity. 
Fossil Spiders. 
Although no Spiders have been yet discovered 
in any rocks so ancient as the Carboniferous 
series, the presence of Insects in this series, and 
also of Scorpions, renders it highly probable that 
the cognate family of Spiders was co-ordinate 
with Scorpions, in restraining the Insect tribes of 
this early epoch, and that it will ere long be re- 
cognized among its fossil remains.* 
* The animal found by Mr. W. Anstice in the Iron stone of 
Coalbrook Dale, and noticed by Mr. Prcstwich as “ apparently 
a Spider” (Phil. Mag. May, 1834, v. iv. p. 376), has been subse- 
quently laid open by me, and shewn to be an Insect, belonging 
to the family of Curculionidae. (PI. 46", Fig. 1.) At the time 
when it was figured, and supposed to be a Spider, its head and 
