122 ROYAL”SOCIETY OF CANADA 
is due the discovery that half-a-dozen or more species of Little River 
flora lived in the region of the Middle Atlantic States in the time of 
the Millstone Grit, so that these species which had been driven from 
New Brunswick by a change in atmospheric temperature or terrestrial 
conditions, were enabled to maintain themselves elsewhere until the 
later epoch above named. 
Something has been made of the fact that the land fauna of the 
Little River plant beds is very like that of the Coal Measures. 
The first insect-remains found in these beds were described by Dr. 
S. H. Scudder, who compared them to the Carboniferous forms and 
especially to those of Mazon Creek; but he did not find any species 
identical, and he did not describe any cockroaches, a group of insects 
particularly abundant in the Coal Measures. The present author also 
found not only species but genera differing from the Carboniferous. 
Even had identical species been found, it would not establish syn- 
chronism in the deposits, for not only would the strong resemblance of 
species of plants in the Little River Group to those of the Coal Meas- 
ures, lead us to anticipate a corresponding resemblance in the insect 
types, but the habitat and other physical relations are those of the Coal 
Measures; hence the fauna and flora are similar. 
CoNCLUSIONS. 
On review of the evidence on which Sir William Dawson concluded 
that the plant beds of the Little River Group were Middle Devonian, the 
author cannot see that any data have been advanced to prove that they 
are of later date. 
Certainly nothing has been done to invalidate the strong evidence 
from stratigraphy and regional metamorphism which separates these 
beds from the Carboniferous System. And if we accept Sir William’s 
determination of the species of plants from these strata, there is nothing 
in the constitution of the flora to show that it is later than the Devonian 
age. 

