34-0 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



Gymnognatha, Grasshoppers and Termites predominate. Fifty-five of the 

 eighty-two species of Hymenoptera belong to the genus Formicina. Lepido- 

 ptera are of very rare occurrence; MycetopMla, Sciura, and other genera 

 whose larvse live in the fleshy substance of fungi, together with Limnobice, 

 and spotted- winged Tipulce, similar to those living in damp forests, prevail 

 among the Diptera. The Ehynchotce are represented chiefly by species of 

 the groups Cimecidce, Cicadidce, Cicadellince, and Aphides. The whole insect 

 fauna of Radobog is without any specific character, embracing mid-European 

 and Mediterranean forms, together with others of Indian, and still more of 

 American type. 



New Fossil. Mr. R. C. Field of Greenfield, Mass., in a letter to the Boston 

 S. N. H., says he thinks he has discovered an entirely new footprint of a 

 biped web-footed animal, two and a half inches long, with a stride of about 

 ten inches, and with an impression of a tail. He thinks this is much more 

 perfect than the one described by Prof. Hitchcock, and may even prove that 

 the latter was not made by a web-footed animal. 



NEW FOSSIL SHELL FRO3I THE CONNECTICUT RIVER SANDSTONE. 



Mr. E. Hitchoock, Jr., in a communication to Silliman's Journal, states that 

 he has recently found in the coarse sandstone of Mount Tom (Easthampton, 

 Mass.) a shell of a mollusk, the first, he believed, that has been discovered in 

 the sandstone of the Connecticut Valley. It is preserved and not petrified, 

 and a considerable part of it has disappeared. Enough remains, however, to 

 enable us to refer it to a family, if not to a genus of shells. The upper part is 

 gone, leaving an oval opening about an inch and three quarters in one dia- 

 meter, and an inch and one quarter in the other. It extends downwards, 

 tapering somewhat rapidly nearly an inch and a half} and is left without a 

 bottom, the lower opening being about an inch wide. The walls are very 

 thick, in some places nearly half an inch, and made up of several concentric 

 layers. From the resemblance of this shell to a model of the lower valve of 

 the Sphasrulites calceoloides in the Cabinet of Amherst College, it seems 

 probable that it may be referred to that family of Brachiopods denominated 

 Rudistas by Lamarck. Its lower parts as well as the lower valve are missing, 

 but what remains approaches nearer to the genus Sphasrulites than to any 

 other of the Rudistse of which he has seen specimens or figures. This fossil 

 seems to lend additional strength to the inference derived from the discovery 

 of the Clathropteris, that the upper part of the sandstone of the Connecticut 

 V alley is as high at least as the Liassic or Jurassic series. It might seem 

 even to carry us higher in the series, but it would be premature to draw such 

 an inference from a single imperfect specimen, even though its true analogies 

 be ascertained. The specimen now belongs to Amherst College Cabinet. 



ON THE SKIN AND FOOD OF THE ICHTHYOSAURUS. 



The following is an abstract of a paper read before the British Association 

 by Mr. C. Moore, at the last meeting : 



In clearing specimens of this fossil animal, dark patches of matter have 



