Page:Geology and Mineralogy considered with reference to Natural Theology, 1837, volume 1.djvu/314

 310 lands, by the same torrents that transported the terrestrial vegetables which have produced the beds of Coal.

The existence of the wing-covers of insects in the Secondary Series, in the Oolitic slate of Stonesfield, has been long known; these are all Coleopterous, and in the opinion of Mr. Curtis many of them approach most nearly to the Buprestis, a genus now most abundant in warm latitudes. (See Pl. 46″. Figs. 4. 5. 6. 7. s. 9. 10.)

Count Munster has in his collection twenty-five species of fossil insects, found in the Jurassic Limestone of Solenhofen; among these are five species of the existing Family of Libellula, (See Pl. 1, Fig. 49,) a large Ranatra, and several Coleoptera.

Numerous fossil Insects have recently been discovered in the Tertiary Gypsum of Freshwater formation at Aix, in Provence. M. Marcel de Serres speaks of sixty-two Genera, chiefly of the Orders Diptera; Hemiptera, and Coleoptera; and Mr. Curtis refers all the specimens he has seen from Aix to European forms, and most of them to existing Genera. Insects occur also in the tertiary Brown coal of Orsberg on the Rhine.