Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 May 2009
So much attention has been bestowed of late years on fossil organic remains from rocks of all ages, that it must appear surprising to find so little notice has been directed to the Insectremains from the British Secondary rocks.
It is now nearly fifty years since that veteran geologist, the Rev. P. B. Brodie, M.A., F.G.S., published his modest little 8vo. volume entitled “A History of the Fossil Insects in the Secondary Rocks of England” which is still the only separate work of the kind extant. Numerous Insect-remains have, it is true, been described by Prof. J. O. Westwood, Mr. H. E. Strickland, Prof. J. F. Blake, Mr. A. G. Butler, and Mr. S. H. Scudder, from English rocks of Secondary age; and Mr. Herbert Goss has given an excellent summary of our knowledge of the Mesozoic Insects in the Proceedings of the Geologists' Association (1879).
page 193 note 1 London, 8vo. pp. xviii. and 130, with 11 plates, 1845.
page 193 note 2 See “The Insect Fauna of the Secondary or Mesozoic Period, and the British ind Foreign Formations of that Period in which Insect-remains have been detected,” by Goss, HerbertF.L.S., F.G.S., Proc. Geologists' Association, 1879, vol vi. pp. 116–150.Google Scholar
page 194 note 1 In a note at p. 378 of the Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. x. 1854, Prof. Westwood states that “A rich collection of fossil insects, from the Lias of Gloucestershire, etc., has been made by Mr. TV. K. Binfleld, to whom also the Museum of the Geological Society is indebted for a suite of insects from the Lias of Lyme fiegis.”
page 194 note 2 The Rev. J. F. Blake has described and figured two fragments of insects from the Yorkshire Lias. One specimen consists of an elytron of a beetle, named by Mr. Blake Buprestites bractoides, and the other specimen consists of two wings of a Neuropterous insect, apparently belonging to some species allied to Chauliodes which Mr. Blake has named Chauliudites minor. See “Yorkshire Lias,” by Tate, Ealph and Blake, J. F., London, 1876, p. 426, pi. xvi. figs. 5 and 6.Google Scholar
page 194 note 3 See Brodie's, “Fossil Insects,” pp. 51–103,Google Scholar and the Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. iv. 1846, pp. 14–16.Google Scholar
page 194 note 4 See Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. v. 1849, pp. 31–35.
page 195 note 1 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. 1846, vol. iv. pp. 14–16.
page 195 note 2 See Mag. Nat. Hist. vol. iv. 1840, pp. 301–303, and woodcuts (New Series).
page 196 note 1 Mr. Goss mentions that he had receiYed from the late Mr. Charles Moore, of Iiatli, a large collection of fossil insects from the Upper Lias of Ilmiiister. This collection included Coleoptera, Neuroptera, Orthoptera, etc.
page 197 note 1 As this single line of ladder-like cross-veinlets occurs within the wing, it may not after all belong to the margin of the lower or hind-wing, but form part of the cross-veinlets of the front wing itself (as in Clathrotennes signatus, Heer).
page 198 note 1 The counterpart of this very beautiful Lias Insect has been kindly presented to the British Museum (Natural History) by Montagu Browne, Esq., F.G.S., who has placed the other half in the Leicester Museum.