FEATURES IN HISTORY OF LIFE ON PACIFIC COAST 

 ment of the lower animals, and a considerable por- 

 tion of the Great Basin history is interpreted in 

 terms of the succession of vertebrates. 



FISHES AND AMPHIBIANS. Dr. David Starr Jordan 

 has assembled all available information on the fossil 

 fishes of California in two papers in the University 

 of California Publications in Geology. The earliest 

 described forms are rare cestraciont sharks from the 

 Triassic of California and Nevada. Rare remains of 

 sharks, and scales of the more modern teleost or bony 

 fishes, occur in the Cretaceous. A few imperfect 

 fishes have been obtained in the fresh-water Eocene 

 of the John Day region of Oregon, and at Elko, Ne- 

 vada. In the marine Eocene of the Pacific Province 

 scattered teeth of sharks appear with fragmentary 

 material of the higher fishes. From the Qligocene 

 scattered remains are known, but no satisfactory 

 collection is available. The most important fish 

 fauna of the western region is known from the 

 marine Miocene occurring along a large part of the 

 west coast. As yet no satisfactory collection of this 

 Miocene fauna has been brought together. The Mio- 

 cene fish fauna includes numerous types of sharks 

 and skates, with forms like the herring and mack- 

 erel. Other groups of the higher fishes are known 

 by many scattered bones and a few fairly preserved 

 skeletons. In the Pliocene and Pleistocene many 

 fish bones have been obtained, but the faunas as a 

 whole are very imperfectly known. 



As yet the Amphibia are known from the west- 

 ern region only by the remains of a peculiar toad 

 recently described from the asphalt deposits of 

 Rancho La Brea. 



REPTILES. The study of the great groups of ex- 

 tinct reptiles, constituting so important a portion of 

 the palaeontologic story of the earth, has been lim- 

 ited in the western region to the history of certain 

 marine reptiles of the Triassic period, representing 

 the first of the three divisions of the age of reptiles. 



In the Lower Triassic, vertebrates are known 

 only by remains of primitive fishes. Middle Triassic 

 beds are exposed both in Nevada and in northern 

 California, but vertebrate remains are described 

 only from the limestones of western Nevada. In the 

 West Humboldt Range near Lovelocks, Nevada, mar- 

 velously preserved skeletons of Middle Triassic 

 ichthyosaurs or fish-lizards have been found, asso- 

 ciated with rare remains of another marine reptile 

 group as yet only imperfectly known. Several 

 ichthyosaur specimens from this region are now on 

 exhibition at the University of California. The ma- 

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