14 CONNECTICUT GEOL. AND NAT. HISTORY SURVEY [Bull. 



Viereck is himself a specialist on some of the groups of Hymen- 

 optera, and he has also had the aid of a number of collaborators 

 who are specialists on other groups of this large and varied 

 order. The writers, who have contributed chapters to the work, 

 are the following : — Alexander Dyer MacGillivray, Assistant 

 Professor of Entomology and Invertebrate Zoology in Cornell 

 University ; Charles Thomas Brues, Curator of Invertebrate Zool- 

 ogy, Public Museum, Milwaukee, Wis. ; William Morton Wheeler, 

 Professor of Economic Entomology in Harvard University. 



The bulletin on the Triassic Fishes, by Dr. Eastman, is a 

 very important contribution to the paleontology of the state. 

 The area of Connecticut is by no means rich in fossils. The crys- 

 talline rocks of the eastern and western highlands have proved 

 as yet utterly barren of fossils. Whatever fossils some of these 

 rocks may have once contained have been entirely obliterated by 

 the processes of metamorphism. The Triassic formation of the 

 Connecticut Valley has . afforded scarcely any fossils, excepting 

 tracks of reptiles and amphibians on some of the beds, and re- 

 mains of fishes and a few species of plants in two or three thin 

 strata of black shale intercalated among the red shales and sand- 

 stones. The scantiness of fossils in this formation has made 

 difficult the determination of its geological age. Dr. Eastman 

 has made a very careful study of all the important collections of 

 the fossil fishes of this formation. He has been able thus to 

 make a more exact determination of some features of the anatomy 

 of the animals than has been made before. He has also made 

 comparisons of the fish fauna of our Connecticut beds with the 

 fish faunas of other Triassic formations in various parts of the 

 world. This comparison leads him to the opinion that the age 

 of our Connecticut formation corresponds most nearly, not with 

 the uppermost European Trias (Keuper or Rhsetic), but rather 

 with a somewhat lower horizon, near the boundary between the 

 Muschelkalk and the Keuper. 



The bulletin by Professor Coe on the Echinoderms of Con- 

 necticut will be the first paper which the Survey has published on 

 the marine zoology of the State. The echinoderms include the 

 creatures commonly called sea-urchins and starfishes. Though 

 not a large class as regards the number of species, the echinoderms 

 are an interesting group. They are among the marine animals 



