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THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. 



there only four months, he travelled very little. If therefore in 

 his writings there is occasionally to be traced an inclination to 

 make unnecessarily minute sub-divisions of strata which cannot 

 be recognized over large areas, or to unduly multiply species, it 

 should be remembered that his experience in the field was both 

 limited and local ; also that if life had been spared him, his in- 

 tention and hope was to have revised his work. 



Mr. Billings' patient elaboration of the fauna of the " Quebec 

 Group," as exhibited in this province and in the island of New- 

 foundland, is a master-piece of palaeontological acumen, and he 

 is justly entitled to the credit of being the first to point out the 

 true geological horizon of these rocks. Although, as before 

 stated, the invertebrates of the Silurian and Devonian rocks 

 were the objects of his special study, he was well acquainted 

 with other branches of Natural History. His essay " on the re- 

 mains of the Fossil Elephant found in Canada" shew that he was 

 a very good comparative osteologist. It is the only paper of the 

 kind that he ever printed, though he once read before this So- 

 ciety a paper on the bones of a species of Beluga dug up near 

 Cornwall, and he has since examined and determined the nature 

 of a few mammalian remains collected by Mr. Richardson near 

 Victoria (V. I.) in 1874, and by Mr. Ells from the Saskatchewan 

 district in 1875. Entomology at one time was a favourite 

 science with him, and he made a very good collection of native 

 coleoptera, which he presented to the museum of this Society a 

 few years ago, in whose cabinet it is still preserved. The article 

 " on the pine-boring beetles of the genus Monohammus," is his 

 first and last contribution to the literature of entomology. For 

 many years he was a zealous collector of minerals, and although 

 he always refused to give an opinion upon specimens which 

 might be submitted for his inspection, and never wrote anything 

 directly bearing on the science, he was nevertheless tolerably well 

 versed in mineralogy. 



It is to be regretted that no manuscripts exist which would 

 enable the second volume of the Palaeozoic Fossils to be com- 

 pleted. Ever since the publication of the first part (in 1874), 

 Mr. Billings' time was almost exclusively occupied in the study 

 of the fossils of the Upper Silurian rocks of the eastern portion 

 of the Dominion, more especially of those collected by Sir W. E. 

 Logan and Prof. Bell near Cape Gaspe, by Mr. T. C. Weston at 

 Arisaig, and by Mr. T. Curry at Port Daniel in the Bay of* 



