Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 3 (1899).djvu/319

Rh sentatives of an insect fauna that was predominant in the Carboniferous epoch." Brongniart and Scudder have proposed a distinct family—Protophasmidæ—for these fossil remains, though Scudder's "restoration" of T. fayoli is perhaps, and necessarily, somewhat imaginary. Mr. Comstock maintains that "we must turn to the Carboniferous as the earliest epoch from which we have data to base our conclusions regarding the structure of the primitive insect wings"; whilst Huxley believed that "the Carboniferous Insecta and Arachnida are neither less specialized, nor more embryonic, than those that now live."

If, however, we suppose, as we may reasonably do, that these Carboniferous Phasmidæ must have been protected forms of insect life at that period—for it is by their peculiar structure that the fossil remains are recognized—the imitative resemblance would also have a different meaning and a diverse reference to what now obtains. Respecting fossil Cockroaches, Mr. Scudder states:—"The first Cockroach wing ever described was first described as a fern leaf, and in all, or nearly all, the localities where their remains have been found they are associated with fern leaves in immense abundance. While searching for their remains in the Permian deposits at Carsville, I was much struck by this resemblance, and was repeatedly obliged to use the glass to determine whether it was the wing of a Cockroach or the frond of a fern I had uncovered, and the instances are not rare where they agree completely in size. The general distribution of the nervures is to cursory view the same in each, and the form is often nearly identical." The flora of the Carboniferous era was very different to that of the present epoch. The mighty forests of gigantic horse-tails, club-mosses, and tree-ferns replaced or anticipated the jungles and woods of to-day; and, as Haeckel truly observes:—"It is difficult for us to form any idea of the very peculiar nature of those gloomy palæolithic fern-forests, in which the whole of the gay abundance of flowers of our present flora was entirely wanting, and which were not enlivened by any bird