40 CONNECTICUT GEOL. AND NAT. HIST. SURVEY. [Bull. 



the occurrence of similar remains in the more southerly region 

 does not seem to have become generally known until toward 

 the middle of the nineteenth century. Those from the Virginia 

 Coal fields were studied successively by the Redfields, father and 

 son, Sir Charles Lyell, Sir Philip Grey Egerton, and Louis 

 Agassiz ; and a brief mention of fragmentary remains from North 

 Carolina, accompanied by a few figures, was contributed by 

 Ebenezer Emmons during the late fifties. 



It is, however, to William C. and John H. Redfield, who wrote 

 between 1837 and 1857, that we are indebted for the first really 

 satisfactory account of the Triassic fish fauna of this country, 

 these two having described nearly all the important species. 

 Their results are embodied in ten publications, eight by the elder, 

 and two by the younger author. These same pioneers also 

 brought together an important collection, of which a good part 

 is still preserved in the Peabody Museum at Yale University, and 

 the rest is unfortunately destroyed or dissipated. 



By far the most signal contribution to our knowledge of Amer- 

 ican Triassic fishes is that contained in Professor J. S. Newberry's 

 " Monograph on the Fossil Fishes and Fossil Plants of New 

 Jersey and the Connecticut Valley." 1 Several new species of 

 Semionotus (described, however, under the title Ischypterus), 

 Ptycholepis and Diplurus were established by him upon the 

 evidence of tolerably satisfactory material, and one doubtful 

 form was referred with some reservation to Acentrophorus, a 

 genus that is otherwise limited, so far as known, to the Upper 

 Permian. This elaborate work of Professor Newberry still re- 

 mains our chief repository of information in regard to the par- 

 ticular subject before our consideration. 



Since Newberry's time comparatively little has been added to 

 our knowledge of the Newark fish fauna, except in the way of 

 rectifying some minor details. An important memoir on the 

 genus Semionotus, by Dr. E. Schellwien, 2 appeared in 1901, in 

 which a few new anatomical points, accompanied by illustra- 

 tions, are worked out for two previously known American species. 

 A number of additional structural characters were made known 

 in 1903 by Dr. George F. Eaton, of Yale University, in the case 



iMonogr. U. S. Geol. Surv., xiv. Washington, 1888. 



2 Schellwien, E., Ueber Semionotus Ag. Schriften der Phys.-Oekonom. Gesellsch. 

 zu Ksnigsberg i. Pr., 1901, pp. i-34. P 1 - i' 1 "- 



