Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1892-01-13
INSECTS OF LONG AGO.
Curious Findings OF the biologists In Q
Little Colorado Lake.

Curious Findings OF the biologists In Q
Little Colorado Lake.
Decidedly the most interesting ex-
hibit at the International Congress of
Biologists recently finished in Wash
ington was collection of fossil in
sects that is said to be the most COM
plete In existence. 1t seems wonderful
that things so fragile. so minute, and
30 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 to-day be-
meath the lenses of the microscope.
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 present time. In this
shape are found the entombed remains
Of an ancient host, SO varied in struc-
ture and so closely resembling their de-
scendants of this century, that they
may be said to include practically every
group in the range of the insect world
al 1t is now known. To the imagina-
ton, they repopulate the past with
buzzing swarms, affordiDg evidence by
their variety and the surprising num-
bers in which their remnants are found,
Of the fact that ancienuy all sorts of
bugs, obnoxious and otherwise, were
vastly more plentiful than now In
fact, there were numerous kinds in the
early days of creation which have since
vanished from the earth.
This was so even so late, compare
lively speaking, as q few hundred
thousand years ago, during what is
called tertiary epoch. At that period
there was a shallow lake in little Col
orado valley, near Pixies peak, which
is overlooked by mountain known
modernly as Topaz Butte, though des-
lgnated by early miners as Slim Jim.
Streams into which insects fell carried
them to the lake, which has since van
tShed. They were buried beneath lay
ers Of volcanic sand and ash, which
fell into the lake from some neighbor-
Ing eruption, being thus preserved, 80
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 to be a mine of these bugs of an
Hquity.
Buried in the ancient rock are mo.
Bquitoes and gnats in abundance.
There are gnats of the kind that feed
upon toadstools and other fungi, ''rob-
Der flies" big and predatory, bees and
wasps of many varieties, ants of all
sorts, inchneumon flies, and of moths
any quantity. the latter being mostly
Of the '1eaf-roller," description, which
warp themselves up in leaves for pro-
lection, while .caterpillars feed on the
substance of the leafs inside, and,
when the provender is exhausted, roll
the leaf little more, fastening it each
time neatly with a silken band. Like
wise flies resembling the house fly are
discovered, and fire flies also.
OF fossil beetles the variety is end
less There are ground beetles, water
beetles, June bugs, blister beetles, such
~ blisters are made out OF for sick
people; seed weevils, snout beetles with
long probosces, buffalo bugs that have
since become terror to housekeepers,
carrion beetles, lady bugs and meal
worms. which fed on decaying vegeta-
ton for lack of meal to eat; also ''click
beetles" otherwise known as skipping
jacks" which jump and make click
ing noise when laid on their backs.
Dragon flies there are, too, and it should
not be forgotten to mention the gall
flies, the females of which lay their
eggs In the bark of trees and other
plants, depositing at the same time a
poison that causes an abnormal growth
Of vegetable tissue, useful to the newly
Matched young for food and to man for
ink and various medicines.
However, of all kinds of insects in
those days the most striking and per-
sistent type seems to have been the
cockroach. He was everywhere,
though his species was even then vast
~ less plentiful than in earlier ages,
when he may be said to have fairly run
the bug world Millions of years ago,
during the so-called pal@ozoic epoch of
armored fishes and queer crustaceans,
the cockroach was present in swarms,
the excessively moist, warm climate at
that time prevailing in the world being
most favorable to his propagation.
When the mesozoic epoch followed and
giant reptiles fifty to one hundred
feet In length called the earth their
own, the cockroach was still extant,
outnumbering all the other contem-
porary bugs put together. His de-
scendants, which now remain to dis
tress the housekeeper, are but q few
survivors of q race which Is believed
by many authorities to have produced
the first air-breathing animaL-N. Y.
Sun.