29^ Mr Wilson 07i the Distribution of Insects. 



the Niagara flows, and thus produce a fissure (not without many 

 examples in other countries), which might, in a few days, or 

 possibly hours, precipitate a large portion of the upper lake upon 

 the nether country, thus producing a debacle of vast sweep and 

 resistless energy, and leaving the present bed of Erie a tertiary 

 VAlley. 



Mr Fairholme, by a strange anachronism, places the coal for- 

 njation above the chalk, for the sake of bringing it nearer to the 

 deluge. It is difficult to meet a writer, however respectable and 

 intelligent, who takes such liberties with facts — liberties that are 

 equally unwarrantable and useless, for no sudden, short, and 

 violent flood could possibly produce the regular coal-beds with 

 their vast and various stratifications and alternations. — Sillimans 

 Jfltirnal, January 1835. 



Remarks on the Distribution of Insects, and Account ofColeop- 

 tera taken in Sutherland in June 1834. By James Wil- 

 son, Esq. F. R. S. E., M. W. S., &c. Communicated by 

 the Author. 



As the laws which regulate the geographical distribution of 

 insects, and of other organized beings, cannot be accurately de- 

 termined without the possession of correct local lists of species, 

 I have presumed that an exhibition of the Coleoptera collected 

 in the most north-western portion of Scotland, would prove in- 

 teresting to those who attend to the study of entomology. So 

 little has been effected in this department in our northern coun- 

 ties, that the English entomologist has as yet scarcely any no- 

 tion how far the species with which he is elsewhere familiar are 

 extended beyond the shores of the Frith of Forth, or even, in 

 the majority of cases, beyond the latitude of Yorkshire. It is 

 evident, however, that British entomology cannot be under- 

 stood so long as the species either peculiar to, or characteristic 

 of, the northern portions of the kingdom remain unknown ; for 

 the subject can never be philosophically considered in its gene- 

 ral relations, nor viewed in connection with continental ento- 

 mology, without more detailed and extensive local data. 



