574 PHYSIOLOGY. 



TWELFTH CHAPTER. 



INSECTS OF A FORMER WORLD. 



314. 



SINCE, in modern times, more attention has been paid to the organic 

 remains of a former world, communications have occasionally been made 

 of insects of this description, but this class has not yet received all the 

 elaboration that has been given to the others. The reason of it may be 

 that insects are not generally found in those formations where the 

 remains of the other classes are so abundant, namely, in the calcareous 

 strata of the tertiary period, but are chiefly imbedded in a vegetable 

 resin known by the name of amber, and which is cast up by the Baltic, 

 or found in the more recent strata. This substance is found at places, 

 which, although not lying beyond the limits of scientific cultivation, 

 yet where the study of a destroyed organisation is not heeded, either 

 from their remains not presenting themselves, or in very solitary in- 

 stances; and amber, which is the sole substance in which the remains of 

 organised beings have been frequently found there, is generally applied 

 to mercantile purposes, and it seldom happens to fall into the hands of 

 learned men or the there very isolated naturalists. But within these 

 few years the incentive to the investigation of native productions has 

 very much increased, and attention begins to be paid at home to what the 

 country's produce has previously only advanced abroad. We cannot 

 however deny that the study of destroyed organic beings has been 

 much stimulated and promoted in and by France, especially by Cuvier's 

 immortal works. Hence have originated also the labours upon destroyed 

 insects which are found in other formations, namely, in calcareous marl, 

 by Marcel de Serres *, who, in a distinct treatise, has characterised the 

 insects found in it. Berendt has promised a detailed description of the 

 insects found in amber, and his prefatory remarks upon the existence 



* Annales dcs Sciences Nat., tmi. xv. p. 18. 



