The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-09-28
FLIES AND BUGS IN STONE.
A Wonderful Collection OF Fossil Insect
of the Tertiary Period.

of the Tertiary Period.
WAsHISGroS CITY, Sept. N.-[Special. +
Decidedly the most interesting exhibit at
the international congress of BIOLOGISTS. re-
Gently finished here, was a collection OF
fossil insects that is said to be the most
complete in existence. 1t seems wonder
full that things SO fragile, so minute and so
easily destroyed as mere insects should
have been preserved in rocks for millions
upon millions Of years In such perfection
that the very hairs which fringe the wings
of certain very small varieties are
visible today beneath the lenses of the mi
croscope. Embedded in the scraps of stone,
which make up the collection referred
to are to be seen the fossilized
forms of all the principal species
that fly and crawl at the pres
ent time. In this shape are found
the entombed remains of an ancient host,
so varied in structure and SO closely re-
sembling their descendants of this coun-
try, that they may be said to include prac-
tlcally every group in she range of the in
sect world as it Is now known. To the
imagination, they repopulate the past
with buzzing swarms, affording evidence,
by their variety and the surprising num-
bers in which their re INFANTS are found, of
the fact that anciently all sorts of bugs,
obnoxious and otherwise, were vastly more
plentiful than now. In fact, there were
numerous kinds in thu early days of crea-
ton which have since vanished from the
earth.
This was even so late, comparatively
speaking, as q few hundred thousand
years ago, during what is called the Ter
tiary epoch. At that period there was q
shallow lake in a httle Colorado valley
near Pixies Peak, which is overlooked by
a mountain known modernly as Topaz
butte, though designated by early miners
as Slim Jim. Streams into which insects
fell carried them to the lake, which has
since vanished. They were buried be-
meath layers of volcanic sand and ash
which fell into the lakes from some neigh
boring eruption, being thus preserved, so
that now biologists dig out their fossils
with pickax and hammer. One little hill.
which was formerly an island, bearing to
this day the erect trunks of giant petrified
seQuoia trees, has been found a mine of
these bugs of antiquity.
Buried in the nncient rock are mosqui-
toes and gnats in abundance. There are
gnats of the kind uhat feed upon toadstools
and other fungi, "robher flies" big and
predatory, bees and wasps of many varie-
ties, ants of all sorts, iehneumon tiles and
saw flies. OF butterflies there are a few,
and Of moths any quantity, the latter be-
ing mostly of the ''leaf roller" description.
which wrap themselves up in leaves for
protection, while catarpillars feed on the
substance of the leafs inside. and when
the provender is exh Iasted, roll the leaf a
little more, fastening it each time neatly
with silken band Likewise flies re-
sembling the house lily are discovered, and
Sref1iaS alSo
Of fossil beetles the variety is endless.
There are ground beetles, water beetles.
June bugs, blister beetles such as bliste-s
are made out OF for sick people, seed wee
wills, snout beetles with long probocides.
buffalo bugs that have since become n
terror to housekee pers. carbon beetles,
lady bugs and meal worms. which fed on
decaying vegetation for lack of meal TO
eat Also 'click beetles" otherwise
known as skipping jacks" which lump
and make a clicking noise when laid on
their backs. DRAGON hies there are too.
and II should not ee forgotten to mention
the gall flies. .he females of which Law
their eggs in the bark of trees and other
plants, depositinE AZ the same time a
poison that oauset an abnormal growth of
vegetable tissue, useful to the neglT
Matched young tct food and 10 man for ink
and various medicines.
However, of all kinds of insects in those
DAYS the most striking ard persistent type
seems TO have been the cockroach. He
was everywhere, though his species was
even then vastly less plentiful than in
earlier ages, wheI, he may be said to have
fairly run the bug world. Millions of
years ago. durin the so-called Paleozoic
epoch Of ar med fishes and Queer
crustaceans, thu cockroach was present
in swarms, 5ha excessively moist. warm
climate a. that time prevailing in the
world being most favorable to his rropa-
CATION. When the Mesozoic epoch fol-
lowed and giant reptiles, fifty TO 100 feet in
length. called the earth their own. the
cockroach vas still extant, Communicating
all the other contemporary bugs nut to-
gether. HIS descendants, which now re-
main to distress the housekeeper, are but
a few survivors Of race which is he
lieved bv many authorities to have pro-
duced the frst air-breathing animal.