Geology topics
Publications and source records attributed to Samuel Hubbard Scudder.
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Some years ago Rev. Edgar F. Clark, then of Providence, Rhode Island, discovered in the Coal-measures of the neighborhood of that city the wing of a cockroach. This stimulated further search by others as well as himself, with the result of finding a fair number and variety of insect types, some of special interest. Most of the discoveries have been made by Mr. Clark (part of them while in the service of the U. S. Geological Survey) and by two young inen of Providence, Messrs. Frederick P. Gorham and Herbert Scholfield, who have been particularly encouraged in their work by Prof. A. S. Packard, of Brown University. All of the specimens have passed under my eye and are herewith described and figured. They consist of Anthracomartus, the first discovered Arachnid in the Carboniferous deposits of the eastern United States; a new genus of Neuropteroidea and one of Protophasmida, each very different from any forms hitherto found in this country, but rather allied to some from the rich Carboniferous beds of Commentry, in France, presenting new features of alliance between the Carboniferous faunas of Europe and America; and a number of cockroaches, all represented by their wings alone. These last show considerable variety of form, both known subfamilies of Paloblattarioe being present, including three genera and nearly a dozen species, the genus Etoblattina, which is the prevalent Carboniferous type the world over, being represented by at least eight species, which again show unusual diversity in size, form, and distribution of the nervules that form the framework of the wing. All the species without exception are new to science and unknown elsewhere. A few additional stones have been submitted to me containing what are apparently parts of the wings of cockroaches, but they are too fragmentary to be of the least value. Nothing more can be said than that they are or may be portions of such wings. It is hoped that the publication of this bulletin will excite further exploration and result in more extended discoveries.
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With the view of furthering study in the too neglected field of fossil insects, I transmit herewith for publication the card catalogue of described fossil insects which I have used for twenty years and kept constantly up to date, and which has greatly facilitated my own researches. It is believed to be practically complete. At least where insects are figured, and in many other cases where they are the first or only references from a given locality, entries are given where only the genus, the family, or even the order is mentioned. This has been done because the early literature of fossil insects is essentially vague and general, but it should not for that reason be wholly overlooked ; and to-day our knowledge of the occurrence of insects of a particular locality, even when of recent discovery, is not infrequently confined to statements of a general nature, which, if not brought to view or mind in a list like this, would be lost sight of, while their recognition may lead to further local investigation, to the earlier benefit of science. It is in no sense a systematic catalogue, and except occasionally in the notes contains no immediate results of investigation. No questions of synonymy are settled. The entries are made as the authors quoted gave them, with only the corrections of spelling required; it follows that the same insect appears at several points, to which the student is referred by full cross-references, and that more than one insect may (though probably rarely does) figure under one name. In one or two such instances, where the same name has been given by inadvertence to two totally different creatures, the later one is separated from the earlier. For convenience' sake, the entries are grouped into large sections, nearly identical with those I have employed in my systematic review of fossil insects (Bulletin 31, U. S. Geological Survey), by which method the insects from the Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary rocks are kept distinct; but otherwise the entries are purely alphabetical under the orders. It should be noticed, however, that the vague references to groups higher than genera are brought together at the beginning of each alphabet, first the most vague, and then those which permit some alphabetization. In these cases the primary or secondary alphabetization is first by authors, second by dates, and in all cases where under one entry there is more than one date the order therein is chronological. In a previous bulletin (Bulletin 69, U. S. Geological Survey) is given a complete bibliography of the literature from which these entries are taken, and the two works are thus complementary to each other.
The present work is an extension to date of a bibliography published in 1882. It has, however, been altered in a few details, and, besides being fuller, differs from that in being a classed list, the works and essays which cover the entire field (which embraces not only insects proper, but also myriapods and arachnids) being placed first, followed by the more special memoirs grouped first by times, next by classes orders, etc., the classification employed in my Systematic Review of Fossil Insects, being used as a convenient basis. This will also form the basis of the Index to Known Fossil Insects, forming a later complementary bulletin. The occasion for the publication of both of these at this time is the completion of the first extended account of the American Tertiary insects given in Vol XIII of the Hayden series of geological reports, by which the numbers of the European and American insects bear for the first time some sort of proper relation to each other, at least in the lower groups. This makes an immediate "account of stock," to employ a commercial term, desirable.
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