158 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 



The plants were catalogued in 1898 {Trans. St. Louis Acad.^ by Mr. 

 W. C. G. Kirchner, who contrived to enumerate as many as 213 species. 

 He included, however, all the indeterminate things, many obsolete 

 identifications, and some duplicates ; with a more careful examination, 

 even with the addition of some new species discovered by Judge Hen- 

 derson and Dr. Ramaley, I cannot find more than about 145 really 

 recognizable species. 



A paper on the new species of plants has been sent for pubhcation 

 elsewhere; in addition, several new names have been proposed to 

 to replace homonyms, and these will be recorded in the same paper. 

 Should circumstances permit, it is hoped to work up the Florissant 

 beds in detail, with the idea of presenting as perfect a picture as 

 possible of the life of the period they represent. There is, perhaps, 

 no locality in the world where so many terrestrial species of one time 

 are preserved; and if every advantage is taken of the splendid oppor- 

 tunity afforded, the result should be of great value to biological and 

 geological science. The work should, of course, employ many hands; 

 it is far too great for any single individual, though such an individual 

 may have a general oversight of the entire field, and piece together 

 the contributions of specialists. It is much regretted that the splen- 

 did publications of Scudder and Lesquereux have not attracted more 

 critical attention, as the advice of specialists on many points is greatly 

 needed. Fortunately, the ants are to be studied by Dr. W. M. Wheeler, 

 and his researches are sure to be of extreme interest. 



There is one aspect of the Florissant insect fauna which is of 

 the greatest importance to the student of evolution; namely that ex- 

 plained by Mr. Scudder in the following words: 



In my recent work on our Tertiary insects, I called attention to some remarkable 

 features in the fossil plant-lice of our Tertiaries, especially the great length and 

 slenderness of the stigmatic cell — a feature which affects the whole topography 

 of the wing, and is found also in the only Mesozoic plant-louse known, but which, 

 nevertheless, cannot be regarded as of significant taxonomic importance since it 

 occurs equally in both Aphidinas and Schizoneurinae, the two principal subfam- 

 ilies of that group, both today and formerly. So, too, in treating in the same place 

 the Pentatomidas, I pointed out that the scutellum was universally shorter in all 

 our Tertiary forms, whether belonging to the subfamily of Cydninae or Pentatom- 



