FOSSIL FISHES OF CONNECTICUT. 415 



the steamer, only to alight farther on. I 

 have never seen such flocks of ducks and 

 gulls. 



At New York I hastened to see Auguste 

 Mayor, of whom my uncle will no doubt 

 have given you news, since I wrote to him. 

 Obliged to continue my road in order to join 

 Mr. Gray at Princeton I stopped but one day 

 in New York, the greater part of which I 

 passed with Mr. Redfield, author of a paper 

 on the fossil fishes of Connecticut. His col- 

 lection, which he has placed at my disposal, 

 has great interest for me ; it contains a large 

 number of fossil fishes of different kinds, from 

 a formation in which but one species has been 

 found in Europe. The new red sandstone of 

 Connecticut will also fill a gap in the history 

 of fossil fishes, and this acquisition is so much 

 the more important, because, at the epoch of 

 the gres bigarre, a marked change took place 

 in the anatomical character of fishes. It pre- 

 sents an intermediate type between the prim- 

 itive fishes of the ancient deposits and the 

 more regular forms of the Jurassic deposits. 



Mr. Asa Gray, professor of botany at Cam- 

 bridge, near Boston, had offered to accom- 

 pany me on my journey to Washington. We 

 were to meet at the house of Professor Tor- 



