anty as is the information hitherto obtained in regard to the
articulata of the coal formation, we have at least ascertained that some
insects winged their way through the ancient forests. In the ironstone
of Coalbrook Dale, two species of coleoptera of the Linnaean genus
curculio have been met with: and a neuropterous insect resembling a
corydalis, together with another of the same order related to the
phasmidae. As an example of the insectivorous arachnidae, I may mention
the scorpion of the Bohemian coal, figured by Count Sternberg, in which
even the eyes, skin, and minute hairs were preserved.[213] We need not
despair, therefore, of obtaining eventually fossil representatives of
all the principal orders of hexapods and arachnidae in carboniferous
strata.

Next in chronological order above the Coal comes the allied Magnesian
Limestone, or Permian group, and the secondary formations from the Trias
to the Chalk inclusive. These rocks comprise the monuments of a long
series of ages in which reptiles of every variety of size, form, and
structure peopled the earth; so that the whole period, and especially
that of the Lias and Oolite, has been sometimes called "the age of
reptiles." As there are now mammalia entirely confined to the land;
others which, like the bat and vampire, fly in the air; others, again,
of amphibious habits, frequenting rivers, like the hippopotamus, otter,
and beaver; others exclusively aquatic and marine, like the seal, whale,
and narwal; so in the early ages under consideration, there were
terrestrial, winged, and aquatic reptiles. There were iguanodons walking
on the land, pterodactyls winging their way through the air, monitors
and crocodiles in the rivers, and ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs in the
ocean. It appears also that some of these ancient saurians approximated
more nearly in their organization to the type of living mammalia than do
any of the reptiles now existing.[214]

In the vast range of strata above alluded to, comprising the Permian,
the Upper New Red Sandstone and Muschelkalk, the Lias, Oolite, Wealden,
Green-sand, and Chalk, scarcely any well-authenticated instances of the
occurrence of fossil birds in Europe are on record, and only two or
three of fossil mammalia.

In regard to the absence of birds, they are usually wanting, for reasons
afterwards to be explained (see chap. 47), in deposits of all ages, even
in the tertiary periods, where we know that birds as well as land
quad