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"Insect Limestones." The remains of insects have been found 

 chiefly in the lower division of this formation in Gloucestershire, 

 Worcestershire, Warwickshire, Somersetshire, and on the borders 

 of Monmouthshire, and a few in Yorkshire. They are generally 

 in a much more fragmentary condition than those from the 

 Purbecks, and, although abundant, are less common than in the 

 latter formation. Mr. Brodie states that he first discovered these 

 interesting fossils in the immediate neighbourhood of Gloucester. 

 He also states that some of the beds of limestone in the lowest 

 division of the Lias, in the vale of Gloucester, abound in insects, 

 and that beautiful specimens of insect remains, chiefly elytra and 

 wings, have been found in the Upper Lias at Dumbleton and 

 Alderton. In this locality (Dumbleton), which is about twelve 

 miles north-east of Cheltenham, Mr. Brodie obtained from the 

 Upper Lias shales one nearly perfect NeuropUrous, insect, of which 

 Professor Westwood says : " It possesses an arrangement of the 

 wing veins difiering from that of any English species, and also 

 from any foreign species known to me, but it comes nearest to the 

 small Libelhdce forming the genus Dlplax. In the Upper and 

 Middle portions of the Lower Lias, which are extensively 

 developed in the neighbourhood of Gloucester and Cheltenham, 

 traces of insects are said to be exceedingly scarce, but at Wainlode 

 Cliff", on the banks of the Severn, near Gloucester, the insect 

 limestone has produced, according to Mr. Brodie, remains of 

 several genera of Coleopfera, which are not very rare ;. and a few 

 wings not unlike those of the genus Tipula. With these were 

 found abdomens of some insects, and larvae, apparently of the 

 gnat tribe. In insect limestone, to the south-west of Combe Hill, 

 not far from the last mentioned locality, Mr. Brodie obtained a 

 great number and variety of insect remains, consisting chiefly of 

 the elytra of Coleoptera, and a few imperfect, but large, wings of 

 lAbelMa. 



At Apperley, near Wainlode Cliff", the remains of insects 

 have been found in plenty, and many small slabs, three or four 

 inches square, exhibiting several elytra and wings, and a few 



