British fossil insects

Odonata.-Eight species.Neuroptera. -Prohemerobiidae, two species.Sialidae, one species, described below.Panorpatae. -^Four species of OrtJioplilehia.Trichoptera.-Two species of Necrotaulius.Palaeohemiptera.-^Two species, one first described below.Homoptera.-Four Fulgorid species.Seven other species of insects have received names, but are too imperfect to place definitely in the system.Oolite (209 species).Orthoptera.-Fifty-five species, of which 43 are Blattoids, 3 Phas- moids, 2 Grylloids, and 7 Locustoids.Coleoptera.-Eighty-seven species.Hymenoptera.-Two species of Pseudosiricidae, formerly supposed, quite erroneously, to be ants.Odonata.-Eight species.Neuroptera.-Four species.Panorpatae.-Two species.Trichoptera.-Three species of Necrotauliidae.Lepidoptera.-Three species.Diptera.-Eighteen species, including forms referred to Myce- tophilidae, Bibionidae, Psychodidae, and Tipulidae.Heteroptera.-Five species.Homoptera.-Tenspecies, including five Fulgoridae, and a single Aphid.Twelve other species are considered by Handlirsch to be too imperfect to be accurately classified.The British Mesozoic insects, especially those from the Lias, are largely known from A History of the Fossil Insects in the Secondary Rocks of England, by the Rev. P. B. Brodie, published in 1845.This work contained a general account of the subject, with a number of plates drawn by Westwood, who added some critical notes, in which he included the new generic name OrtJioplilehia.There w^ere no formal descriptions of genera or species.Brodie himseK gave specific names to 32 of the insects he figured; in 1856 Giebel named 67 others; and finally Handhrsch, in his great work on fossil insects, gave specific names to 22 of those which had remained nameless, and proposed a large number of genera.Five of the species figured by Brodie received names from as many authors, namely, Westwood, Hagen, Strickland, Buckland, and Buckman.More than 30 figures still remain without names, but almost without exception they fail to show characters from which the species could be recognized.Thus, of the 291 British Mesozoic insects, no less than 126 are fig- ured in Brodie's work, and with a small number of exceptions are NO.2119.BRITISH FOSSIL INSECTS-COCKERELL.471 not otherwise known.Since the figures are small and not very detailed, and the specimens themselves were never very critically studied, it is clear that our Imowledge of the subject is much less than the long array of generic and specific names would suggest.Of the 49 Mesozoic Blattoids, 27 were described and named by Scudder in 1886.Tertiary (42 species).Coleoptera.-Two from Corfe (? Middle Eocene), named by Giebel in 1856; one from Bovey Tracey (Upper Eocene), named by Heer in 1862; one from Mundesley (Upper PUocene), named by Curtis in