LITTLE ElVER GROUP, No. II. 95 



Descriptions of Organic Remains. 



Mr. "W. J. Wilson, now of the Canadian Geological Survey, placed in mj' hands for 

 examination some time ago remains of several animals found by him when collecting plants 

 from the plant beds in St. John Co., N.B. Among these remains were the wing of an insect, 

 the céphalothorax of a scorpion and a pulmoniferous mollusc. Other species of this fauna, 

 some of which I owe to his courtesy, were described in an article which I had the honour to 

 read before this Society in May, 1888.' 



The land fauna of this age in St. John county is very limited and consists of the few 

 remains of animals that have been met with from time to time in collecting land plants, first 

 by the writer more than thirty years ago, next, and chiefly, by the late Professor C. F. Hartt, 

 and in later years by Mr. W. J. Wilson. Mr. Wilson's collections have been made under 

 exceptional circumstances. The beds from which Prof. Hartt had collected had been quarried 

 to the level of the beach and thus apparently exhausted. But Mr. Wilson, watching the 

 beach after storms, was able to find some of the ledges bared by the action of the waves, and 

 from these collected the objects herein described. He could work at these ledges only for a 

 few hours when the tide was out, so that science is indebted to his watchfulness and perse- 

 verance for the discovery of these rare objects. 



The land fauna found in these rocks by Prof Hartt and myself was described by the 

 late J. W. Salter, of London, Dr. S. H. Scudder, of Cambridge, and Sir Wm. Dawson, of 

 Montreal, and consisted of the remains of six insects and one snail. The insect wings, all of 

 which were more or less broken, were referred to Neuropterous insects ; most of them were 

 thought to be related to the Odonata (Dragon flies), while one was considered an Ephem- 

 erid (May fly). The snail was tViought by Sir Wm. Dawson to be related to Strophia of 

 Albers, and so called by him Strophites grandœva.^ 



In addition to the species described in this paper, Mr. Wilson collected some years ago, 

 and placed in my hands for description, an insect's wing, a grub (?) and another fossil which 

 is possibly a pedipalp ; these were described in the Transactions of this Society five years 

 ago.' 



The insect wing now to be described is fairly well preserved, and sufliciently complete 

 to show clearly its affinities. It agrees in all essential characters with Scudder's family 

 group Homothetidœ, and is closely allied to the type of the family Homothetus fossilis, 

 Scud., but is a different species. 



Homothetus erutus, n. sp. PL I., fig. 11. 



Mediastinal vein extending four-fifths of the length of the wing, faintly visible in the 

 outer half, connecting with the costal vein. Scapular vein extending without branches to 

 the apical margin,^ straight in the inner two-thirds, slightly curved downward in the outer 

 third. Externo-median vein originating close to the scapular, and gradually diverging ; at 

 nearly one-third from its orighi it branches, at nearly half its length a second branch diverges, 



' On some remarkable organisms of the Silurian and Devonian rocks of Southern New Brunswick. 

 '' Strophites was preoccupied by Deshayes in 183'.'. Sir William has substituted Strophella. 

 " Trans. Roy. Soc. Can., Vol. VI., Sec. IV., p. 49. 



• Accepting l>r. Scudder's limitation of this vein in Homothetus. See '' Devonian Insects in New Brunswick," 

 Memoir Natural History Society, Boston, 1880. 



