1916] The Ottawa Naturalist. 25 



fine plate in Schuchert's "Revision of Paleozoic Stelleroidea," 

 U.S. National Museum, 1915. Schuchert's additional material 

 indicates that the type specimen had lost practically its entire 

 apical skeleton. It, however, reveals structures not yet seen 

 in any fossil sea-star ever collected before. This rare find of 

 Mr. J. E. Narraway at City View should prove of interest to the 

 readers of this magazine, and it is to be hoped that other frag- 

 ments of this species will be found, as there are many points in 

 its structure not yet satisfactorily explained. 



A study of the specimen figured by Raymond, in Ottawa 

 Naturalist, December, 1912, is also one of those marvellous 

 dissections and preparations by nature which has so much to 

 say concerning the minute anatomy or histology of an extinct 

 subclass of Asterozoa. This specimen I have treated in an 

 article which will appear in the Director's report of the N. Y. 

 State Museum for 1915. 



Now, we must bear in mind that Mother Nature has worked 

 for hundreds of years on some of her surface material to prepare 

 it in a manner that man cannot yet imitate. We might say 

 that as a carefully dissected and preserved frog, so prepared as 

 to display its internal organs, would have a greater money value 

 than an ordinary dead frog, so would a dissection and prepara- 

 tion at nature's hands of one of her buried forms enhance its 

 value. At the same time, however, we should bear in mind that 

 the dissection of the frog is a much easier matter than the dis- 

 section of any fossil. The field of weathered surface is certainly 

 limited, and collectors in any region that has been frequently 

 visited will tell one that good finds are not so abundant as they 

 used to be. When surface material has so much to tell, it is 

 certainly a matter of regret to have a large percentage of it de- 

 stroyed through ignorance and carelessness. It becomes a duty 

 then to conserve this material, and to make it widely known 

 that well weathered specimens of all uncommon species, even 

 though very fragmentary (such as the separate ossicles of Blas- 

 toidocrinus, figured in N. Y. State Museum Bulletin 107, plates 

 4-7) is desired for study of external ornament, form of ossicles, 

 or other elements of structure, manner of articulation, growth 

 stages, etc. 



Buried material is, of course, limitless so far as common 

 species are concerned, but for all rare forms such material is 

 desired for study through development and sectioning. In 

 many cases fragments might be of inestimable value. 



(To be continued.) 



