22 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



Stefano, appeared in Boll. Soc. Geol. Hal. vol. xxix. pp. 381-402, 

 1911. 



Two memoirs on fossil fishes have been issued during the 

 year by the Palaeontographical Society (in the volume for 191 1). 

 In the first of these Dr. R. H. Traquair — whose recent death 

 is a great loss to fossil ichthyology — continues his account of the 

 British Carboniferous Palceoniscidce, describing one species of 

 Canobius as new. In the second Dr. Smith Woodward com- 

 pletes his account of the fishes of the English Chalk, dealing, 

 apart from a supplement, with the well-known genus PtycJiodus, 

 of which he figures a remarkably fine series of associated teeth 

 obtained by Mr. Willett near Brighton. The author concludes 

 with the remark that the English Cretaceous fish-fauna is of a 

 much more modern type than the contemporary reptilian and 

 mammalian faunas, thereby indicating, at any rate in the case 

 of the acanthopterygian teleosteans, a remarkably rapid process 

 of evolution. The distribution of Ptychodus teeth in the English 

 Chalk, as well as the teeth themselves, form the subject of a 

 paper by G. E. Dibley in the Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. lxvii. 

 pp. 263-77, 1911- 



The following papers by Mr. M. Leriche published during 

 191 1 may also be mentioned here: Note sur les Poissons 

 stampiens du Bassin de Paris, Ann. Soc. Geol. Nord, vol. xxxi. 

 pp. 324-36 ; Sur quelques Poissons du Cretace du Bassin de 

 Paris, Bull. Soc. Geol. France, ser. 4, vol. x. pp. 455-71 ; Note sur 

 les Poissons Neogenes de la Catalogue, ibid. pp. 471-4; and Un 

 Pycnodontoide aberrant du Senonien du Hainault — Acrotemnus 

 splendens, de Kon., Bull. Soc. Beige geol. vol. xxv. Proc. Verb. pp. 162-8. 



Brief notice must also suffice for two papers on Cretaceous 

 fishes, of which the first, by Dr. G. d'Erasmo (Riv. Hal. Paleont. 

 vol. xviii. fasc. 2 and 3), deals with certain species from Monte 

 Libano. In the second Dr. E. Henning (Sitzber. Ges. natfor. 

 Freunde, 191 2, pp. 483-93) discusses the rapid evolution of 

 teleostean fishes in the short period between the Upper and 

 Middle Cretaceous and the question whether this implies poly- 

 phyletic origin from several distinct groups of ganoids. The 

 fish-faunas of a number of Cretaceous horizons are contrasted 

 with one another. 



Of more general interest is certain new evidence as to the 

 community of type existing between the Tertiary faunas of 



