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



No general work dealing with the marine fauna of the Con- 

 necticut coast has been published since the very valuable paper 

 by Verrill and Smith on the Invertebrate Animals of Vineyard 

 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 pub- 

 lished, and the papers of Professor Verrill and Dr. Kunkel on the 

 Crustacea, of which the former is well advanced towards com- 

 pletion, and the latter has been accepted for publication. Papers 

 on 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 resources. 



Of the principal orders of insects, the orthoptera are treated 

 in a bulletin already published, 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 those most numerous in species and most 

 important in economic relations. 



A bulletin on the birds of Connecticut is now in press; but 

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

 invertebrates await consideration in future years. 



# 



The Continuance of the Survey 



What has already been said in regard to the work accom- 

 plished or in progress and the plans for future work, makes it 

 obvious that the business of the State Geological and Natural 

 History Survey is not rapidly approaching completion. In fact, 

 the State Survey should be recognized as a permanent institu- 

 tion. The Geological Survey of the state of New York was com- 

 menced in 1836. There is at present no organization in the 

 state of New York bearing the title of Geological Survey, but 

 there is a Science Division of the Educational Department of the 

 state, whose staff includes a State Geologist, a State Botanist, a 

 State Entomologist, and a number of other scientific workers. 

 Under one form of organization or another, the work of investi- 

 gation of the geology and natural history of New York under 

 the auspices of the state has already been substantially continuous 

 for more than two generations. There is no prospect that it will 

 ever be finished. 



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

 cluded in the fauna of Vineyard Sound. 



