Insects in secondary and tertiary strata. 411 
I'estrial vegetables which have produced the beds 
of Coal. 
The existence of the wing-covers of Insects 
m the Secondary Series, in the Oolitic slate of 
®tonesfield, has been long known ; these are all 
Coleopterous, and in the opinion of Mr. Curtis 
many of them approach most nearly to the Bu- 
Prestis, a genus now most abundant in warm 
latitudes. (See PI. 46". Figs. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.)* 
Count Munster has in his collection twenty- 
five species of fossil Insects, found in the Jurassic 
Limestone of Solenhofen ; among these are five 
species of the existing Family of Libellula, (See 
* M. Aug. Odier has ascertained, that the Elytra and other 
Parts of the horny covering of insects, contain the peculiar sub- 
stance Chitine, or Elytrine, which approaches nearly to the ve- 
Ratable principle Lignins; these parts of Insects burn without 
fusion, or swelling, like horn, and without the smell of animal 
flatter ; they also leave a Coal which retains their form. 
iVr. Odier found that even the hairs of a Scarabaus nasicornis 
^■etained their form after burning, and therefore concludes that 
they are different from the hairs of vertebral animals. This cir- 
•^umstance explains the preservation of the hairs on the horny 
cover of the Bohemian Scorpion. 
He ascertained also that the Sinews (Nermres) of Scarabaei, 
^re composed of Chitine, and that the soft flexible laminae of the 
®hell of a crab, which remain after the separation of the Lime, 
^bo contain Chitine. 
Cuvier observes, that the Integuments of Entomostracans, are 
father horny than calcareous, and that in this respect they approx- 
‘unate to the nature of Insects and Arachnidans. See Zoological 
'Journal. London, 1825, vol. i. p. 101. 
