FOSSILS 505 



which are peculiar to this locality are very rare and will probably always 

 be so. 



Prior to 1902 all the existing specimens, so far as diligent search and 

 inquiry have shown, numbered at most only a fe\v|hundred. The unusual 

 quantity of lignite removed during the scarcity of coal afforded an oppor- 

 tunity for collecting the fossils which was fully improved. By having 

 collectors on the ground to watch every mass brought to the surface and 

 to take out all the fruits that they could find, I succeeded in getting sev- 

 eral thousand more or less perfect specimens. These with the museum 

 specimens at my disposal constitute the material on which this paper 

 and that in the Vermont report of 1904 are based. 



LOCATION OF COLLECTIONS 



As specimens of these interesting fossils are, so far as I know, found 

 in but few of our museums, it seems desirable to mention where they 

 can be seen. 



Aside from the large series in the Vermont state museum at Mont" 

 pelier, which contains all the types figured in the fourth report, and the 

 almost equally fine collection in the museum of the University of Ver- 

 mont, there are good collections in the American Museum of Natural 

 History, New York, the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Cambridge, 

 the museum of the Boston Society of Natural History, the United States 

 National Museum, the museums of Amherst, Dartmouth, Yale, Middle- 

 bury, and very possibly a few others from which I have not heard. The 

 American museum has the original specimens which Hitchcock figured 

 and Lesquereux described and named, and the Museum of Comparative 

 Zoology has a fine series, including what may well be regarded as cotypes 

 of Lesquereux's species, since they were Lesquereux's own specimens 

 which he received from Doctor Hitchcock. 



DIFFICULTY OF IDENTIFICATION FROM PUBLISHED DESCRIPTIONS 



Finding himself in possession of the large amount of material which 

 has been mentioned, the writer at first' had no other thought than to 

 identify the fossils with published descriptions, but before long it became 

 very evident that this was not possible, nor did comparison with the 

 type specimens in New York facilitate matters very much. Evidently 

 different and often widely separated species were included by Lesque- 

 reux under one name, and the whole matter seemed to be in hopeless 

 confusion. 



METHOD OF IDENTIFICATION ADOPTED 



There appeared to be only two possible courses : Either all that had 

 been published prior to Doctor Knowlton's paper in the Torrey Bulletin 



