. The Cambridge natural history. Zoology. FOSSIL COCKROACHES 239 have already said, that in the Palaeozoic epoch Insects similar to our existing cockroaches were abundant, their remains being found in plenty in the coal-measures both of Europe and North America. Fig. 133, B, shows a fossil tegmen of EtoUattina manebcuihensis from the upper Carboniferous beds of Ilmenau in Germany. It will be noticed that the disposition of the nervures is very much like that which may be seen in some of our existing Blattidae (cf the tegmen of Bldbera, Pig. 132, A), the vena dividens (a) being similarly placed
. The Cambridge natural history. Zoology. FOSSIL COCKROACHES 239 have already said, that in the Palaeozoic epoch Insects similar to our existing cockroaches were abundant, their remains being found in plenty in the coal-measures both of Europe and North America. Fig. 133, B, shows a fossil tegmen of EtoUattina manebcuihensis from the upper Carboniferous beds of Ilmenau in Germany. It will be noticed that the disposition of the nervures is very much like that which may be seen in some of our existing Blattidae (cf the tegmen of Bldbera, Pig. 132, A), the vena dividens (a) being similarly placed, as is also the mediastinal vein on the front part of the organ. The numerous carboniferous Blattidae have been separated as a distinct Order of Insects by Scudder under the name Palaeo- blattariae, but apparently rather on theoretical grounds than because of any ascertained important structural distinctions. He also divided the Palaeoblattariae into two groups, Mylacridae and Blattinariae, the former of which was supposed to be peculiar to America. Brongniart has, however, recently discovered that in the Carboniferous deposits of Commentry in Prance Mylacridae are as common as in America. This latter authority also states that some of the females of these fossil Blattidae are distinguished by the presence of an elongate exserted organ at the end of the body. He considers this to have been an ovi- positor by which the eggs were deposited in trees or other receptacles, after a manner that is common in certain Orthoptera at the present day. If this view be correct these Carbon- iferous Insects must have been very different from the Blattidae of our own epoch, one of whose marked characteristics is the deposition of the eggs in a capsule formed in the body of the parent. In the strata of the secondary epoch re- mains of Blattidae have also been discovered in both Europe and America, in Oolitic, Liassic, and Triassic deposits. Prom the Tertiary strata, on the other hand, comparati
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