All
belong to the lowest orders of their class. No Hymenopters (ants,
bees, and wasps) or Coleopters (beetles) are found in the
Coal-forest; and it will be many millions of years before the
graceful butterfly enlivens the landscapes of the earth. The
early insects nearly all belong to the lower orders of the
Orthopters (cockroaches, crickets, locusts, etc.) and Neuropters
(dragon-flies, may-flies, etc.). A few traces of Hemipters (now
mainly represented by the degenerate bugs) are found, but
nine-tenths of the Carboniferous insects belong to the lowest
orders of their class, the Orthopters and Neuropters. In fact,
they are such primitive and generalised insects, and so
frequently mingle the characteristics of the two orders, that one
of the highest authorities, Scudder, groups them in a special and
extinct order, the Palmodictyoptera; though this view is not now
generally adopted. We shall find the higher orders of insects
making their appearance in succession as the story proceeds.
Thus far, then, the insects of the Coal-forest are in entire
harmony with the principle of evolution, but when we try to trace
their origin and earlier relations our task is beset with
difficulties.
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