l6 CONNECTICUT GEOL. AND NAT. HIST. SURVEY [Bull. 



classification of the group, and their economic relations. In 

 Part II., Mr. Walden gives a catalogue, with analytical keys, of 

 the two orders, Euplexoptera and Orthoptera. The former order 

 is a small and comparatively insignificant one, including the 

 insects commonly called earwigs. By many entomologists the 

 Euplexoptera have been regarded as merely a subdivision of 

 the Orthoptera. The Orthoptera constitute a larger and more 

 important order, including, besides some less familiar forms, 

 the cockroaches, the locusts and grasshoppers, the katydids, 

 and the crickets. The mere mention of the names, locust and 

 grasshopper, is enough to suggest the importance of the economic 

 relations of the Orthoptera. Part I. of this bulletin is illustrated 

 by a series of plates, representing typical examples of all the 

 principal orders of insects. Part II. is illustrated by a number 

 of plates from photographs of entire insects representing different 

 groups of Orthoptera, and by numerous figures in the text from 

 drawings of diagnostic parts of the anatomy of various families 

 and genera. 



Bulletin i8 7 on the Triassic Fishes, by Professor Eastman, of 

 the University of Pittsburgh, is a very important contribution 

 to the paleontology of the state. The area of Connecticut is by no 

 means rich in fossils. The crystalline rocks of the eastern and 

 western highlands have proved as yet utterly barren of fossils. 

 Whatever fossils some of these rocks mav have once contained 

 have been entirely obliterated by the processes of metamorphism. 

 The Triassic formation of the Connecticut Valley has afforded 

 scarely any fossils, excepting tracks of reptiles and amphibians on 

 some of the beds, and remains of fishes and a few species of plants 

 in two or three thin strata of black shale intercalated among the 

 red shales and sandstones. The scantiness of fossils in this 

 formation has made difficult the determination of its geological 

 age. Professor 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), as has been of late generally supposed, but rather with 

 a somewhat lower horizon, near the boundary between the 

 Muschelkalk and the Keuper. 



Bulletin 19, by Professor Coe, of Yale University, ot* the 

 Echinoderms of Connecticut, will be the first paper published 

 by the Survey on the marine zoology of the state. The 



