VERTEBRATE PALEONTOLOGY IN 1912 21 



In regard to literature relating to fossil fishes the writer 

 may take the opportunity of mentioning that authors do not 

 send him copies of papers on this subject to nearly the same 

 extent as they do those on higher vertebrates. Consequently his 

 reviews on this section contain more omissions than is the case 

 in other groups. 



Such notice as I can give may commence with mention of 

 an article by Dr. C. R. Eastman on Mesozoic and Caenozoic 

 fishes published in the Bulletin of the Geological Society of 

 America, vol. xxiii. pp. 228-32. After alluding to the 

 general lines on which piscine evolution appears to have taken 

 place during past epochs, the author raises the question whether 

 the fish-fauna of the ocean abysses has been driven to its 

 present haunts as a refuge against foes and competition. The 

 question is answered in the affirmative, the author remarking 

 that, according to palaeontological evidence, this "refuge was 

 not inhabited to any great extent by fishes prior to the latter 

 part of the Cretaceous. But, beginning during this period and 

 steadily proceeding until the present day, a gradual migration 

 of certain groups of fishes into great depths of the ocean has 

 been in progress, coincident with remarkably striking changes 

 in the anatomical structure of the emigrant outcasts. As a 

 result of recent researches, more especially of the late Cretaceous 

 and Eocene deep-sea fish-faunas, we are enabled to note the 

 gradually changing constitution of these abyssal assemblages 

 from the close of the Mesozoic onward to our own day." The 

 paper concludes with notices of recent work on fossil fishes. 



A large series of remains of fishes from the Upper Tertiary 

 and Secondary deposits of France form the subject of two 

 papers by Mr. F. Priem, published in Bull. Soc. Ge'ol. France, 

 ser. 4, vol. xii. pp. 213-45 an d 250-71 ; a few species being 

 described as new. In a third article the same author {op. cit. 

 pp. 246-9) describes and figures certain fish-otoliths from the 

 French and English Eocene. A supplement to his account of 

 the fishes of the Paris Basin was also published by Mr. Priem in 

 191 1 {Ann. Palceont. vol. vi. pp. 1-44). 



In the Mem. Soc. ital. Sci. ser. 3, vol. xvii. pp. 182-245, Messrs. 

 Bassani and d'Erasmo discuss the Cretaceous fish-fauna of Capo 

 d'Orlando, near Naples ; all the specimens being referred to 

 previously known species. Another paper on the Italian fish- 

 fauna, namely that of the Pliocene of Imolese, by Mr. G. de 



