No. 17] FOURTH BIENNIAL REPORT 25 



Sound, published in the Report of the United States Commis- 

 sioner of Fish and Fisheries for 1871-2.* The State Survey 

 has made a beginning of a series of papers on our marine fauna, 

 in the paper of Professor Coe on the echinoderms, already ac- 

 cepted for publication, and the papers of Professor Verrill and 

 Dr. Kunkel on the Crustacea, which are expected to be finished and 

 presented at an early date. Papers on the other groups of marine 

 organisms should follow. Some of these papers would be of very 

 great educational value, while some of them would be important 

 from an economic point of view, since our marine fauna includes 

 some species which are among the important resources of the 

 state, and other species which are destructive of important re- 

 sources. 



Of the principal orders of insects, the Orthoptera are treated 

 in a bulletin already in press, and the Hymenoptera in one which 

 has been accepted for publication. A bulletin on the Hemiptera 

 is in preparation. Other orders remain to be treated, among 

 which are several of the most numerous in species and most 

 important in economic relations. 



A bulletin on the birds of Connecticut is soon to appear; but 

 the mammals, reptiles, amphibia, and various groups of terrestrial 

 invertebrates await consideration in future years. 



ALTERNATIVE PLANS 



The plans outlined in the preceding paragraphs are for work 

 substantially similar in character to the work which has been 

 done in the previous years of the Survey. The value of such 

 work is largely scientific and educational, though the economic 

 side has been by no means ignored. Two projects, however, for 

 work of more decidedly economic character are at present under 

 consideration by the Commissioners, but have not yet been worked 

 out so definitely as to enable the Commissioners to decide whether 

 it is feasible or expedient to undertake either of them in the 

 immediate future or not. 



One of these is a soil survey of the state. Such surveys have 

 been prosecuted in many of the states by the Bureau of Soils of the 

 U. S. Department of Agriculture, while in other states such sur- 

 veys have been conducted by Agricultural Experiment Stations 



* Most of the animals living in Long Island Sound and Fisher's Island Sound are 

 included in the fauna of Vineyard Sound. 



