MIOCENE STEATA OF SWITZERLAND. 
223 
GlV 2 ^tostrobits Europceus. 
Brunch with ripe fruit; 
Heer, PI. 20, Fig-, 1. Up¬ 
per Miocene, (Eningen. 
isiana. Among the Coniferse of'Upper 
Aliocene age is found a deciduous cypress 
nearly allied to the Taxodium distichum 
of North America, and a Glyptostrobiis 
(Fig. 144), very like the Japanese G, het- 
erophyllus^ now common in onr shrub¬ 
beries. 
Before the appearance of Heer’s work 
on the Miocene Flora of Switzerland, 
Unger and Goppert had already pointed 
out the large proportion of living North 
American genera which distinguished the 
vegetation of the Miocene period in Cen¬ 
tral Europe. Next in number, says Heer, to these American 
forms at CEningen the European genera preponderate, the 
Asiatic ranking in the third, the African in the fourth, and 
the Australian in the fifth degree. The American forms are 
more numerous than in the Italian Pliocene flora, and the 
whole vegetation indicates a warmer climate than the Plio¬ 
cene, though not so high a temperature as that of the older 
or Lower Miocene period. 
The conclusions drawn from the insects are for the most 
part in perfect harmony with those derived from the plants, 
but they have a somewhat less tropical and less American 
aspect, the South European types being more numerous. 
On the whole, the insect fauna is richer than that now inhab¬ 
iting any part of Europe. No less than 844 species are reck¬ 
oned by Heer from the CEningen beds alone, the number of 
specimens which he has examined being 5080. The entire list 
of Swiss species from the Upper and Lower Miocene together 
amount to 1322. Almost all the living families of Coleoptera 
are represented, but, as we might have anticipated from the 
preponderance of arborescent and ligneous plants, the wood¬ 
eating beetles play the most conspicuous part, the Buprestidse 
and other long-horned beetles being particularly abundant. 
The patterns and some remains of the colors both of Cole¬ 
optera and Hemiptera are preserved at CEningen, as, for ex¬ 
ample, in the annexed figure of Harpactor^ in which the an¬ 
tennae, one of the eyes, and the legs and wings are retained. 
The characters, indee(j, of many of the insects are so well 
defined as to incline us to believe that if this class of the 
invertebrata were not so rare and local, they might be more 
useful than even the plants and shells in settling chronolog¬ 
ical points in geology. 
Middle or Marine Molasse (Upper Miocene) of Switzerland.-— 
It was before stated that the Miocene formation of Switzer- 
