Vll 
IvETTEI\^ OF j I^ANSMITTAL. 
Geological Survey Branch, 
Department of Mines, 
Sydney, 1 October, 1890. 
Sir, 
I have the honor to transmit herewith Memoir No. 7 of the 
TalcBontological Series of the Geological Survey of Noav South Wales, on 
the Mesozoic and Tertiary Insects of Neio South Wales, by Mr. R. Etheridge, 
Junr., and Mr. A. Sidney Ollitf. 
It is a fact worthy of comment, as remarked by the Authors, that no 
discovery of Insect remains has hitherto been recorded from the Permo- 
Carboniferous Coal Measures of Australia, the fine-grained clay shales and 
ironstones of which should be eminently fitted for the preservation of such 
delicate organisms. 
This, however, is probably attributable rather to the want of systematic 
search for such fossils than to their non-existence. The abundance of fossil 
wood and various plants in the Permo-Carboniferous Coal Measures of 
Ncav South Wales, and the occurrence in the latter, as at Awaba, near 
Newcastle, of the fossil remains of extensive coniferous forests, render the 
co-existence of insect life with this fiora more than probable. The recent 
important discoveries of fossil Insects by Mr. J. H. Simmonds, of Brisbane, 
in the Ipswich Coal Measures, prove that insect life had already attained 
some considerable development in the early portion of the Mesozoic Era in 
Queensland. 
The fossil Insects described in the accompanying Memoir are from at 
least two widely distinct geological horizons. Cicada? Loicei is from the 
Tceniopteris-hQdbVm^ beds of the Talbragar River in New South Wales, and 
probably of Lower Mesozoic age. The fossil Insects from the Ipswich Coal 
Measures of Queensland are probably referable to about the same geological 
period as the former, as evidenced by the similarity of the fossil floras with 
which they are respectively associated. 
