388 Kirkhy — Insect-remains from the Coal. 



one of striking importance, viz., the development of veinlets, at the 

 base of the wing, forming portions of concentric rings. I have 

 endeavoured in vain to explain these away as something foreign to 

 the wings, accidentally introduced upon the stone, and I know of 

 nothing to which it can he compai-ed but to the stridulating organ of 

 some male Orthoptera I It is difficult to tell whether the fragment 

 belongs to an upper or an under wing. Its expanse of wings was 

 probably from two to two and a half inches. 



EXPLANATION OF PLATE XVII.— (Figs. 1-5). 



Fig. 1. — Eaplophlehium Barnesii, Scudder. Coal-shale, Little Glace Bay, Cape 

 Breton, Nova Scotia, a. Profile of base of wing. 

 ,, 2. — Flatephemera antiqua, Scudder. 

 ,, 3. — Hoinothetus fossilis, Scudder. 

 ,, 4. — Lithentomwm Harttii, Scudder. 

 „ 5. — Xenoneura antiquorum, Scudder, 

 Figs. 2-5 all from Plant-bearing Devonian shales, St. John's, New Brunswick. 



II. — On the Ekmains of Insects from the Coal-Measukes of 



Durham. 



By James "W. Kirkby. 



(Plate XVII., Figs. 6-8.) 



AS the remains of insects are rarely found in Carboniferous strata, 

 a short account of three imperfect specimens, which have been 

 discovered in the Durham coal-field, may not be deemed valueless. 

 Indeed, with the exceptions of the specimens described from Coal- 

 brook Dale by Prestwich,^ twenty-five years ago, and the examples 

 of Xylohius sigillarm of Dawson, — discovered by Mr. Tindall, in the 

 Lower Coal Measures, near Huddersfield,^ and by Mr. Thomas 

 Brown, of Stewarton, in the Upper Coal Measures of Kilmaurs,^ — ^I 

 am not aware of any other fossils of this class having been noticed 

 as occurring in Carboniferous rocks in England. 



The fossils under notice were found on the north bank of the 

 Wear, opposite to Claxheugh, about two miles west of Sunderland. 

 An upcast fault to the east brings into section a few of the higher 

 beds of the coal-field, which the wash of the river has exposed in a low 

 drift-covered cliff. About sixty yards from the fault there appears a 

 few feet of dark-grey, compact, and fissile shale, containing three or 

 four thin and irregular bands of clay-ironstone, from one of which 

 the insect remains were obtained. 



As the throw of the fault does not exceed seventy or eighty feet,— 

 the upper portion of the Lower red Permian sandstone being the 

 surface rock on the west side of the dislocation, — the position of the 

 bands of ironstone cannot be very far below the base of the Permian 

 series. Moreover, as the measures of this coal-field attain their 

 maximum thickness in the vicinity of Sunderland — being more or 



1 Geol. Trans. 2nd Series, 1842, Vol. v., p 440. 



2 Trans. Lit. and Phil. Soc. Manchester, January 8th, 1867 ; and Geol. Mag., 

 Vol. IV., No. 33, 1867, p. 132. 



3 Geol. Mag., March, 1867, p. 130. 



