50 CONNECTICUT GEOL. AND NAT. HIST. SURVEY. [Bull. 



Arbitrary and captious as Newberry's procedure appears to 

 the modern systematist, such license was by no means uncom- 

 mon, and, indeed, seems to have been not only tolerated but ap- 

 proved by the best paleontological authorities of his day. Nowa- 

 days, when nomenclatural codes are much more rigidly en- 

 forced, it would be contrary to all rule to abandon a vaHd specific 

 name because of either a real or imaginary incongruity of mean- 

 ing, and in cases where the name originally bestowed upon a 

 species has become displaced for no more cogent reason than 

 this, the tendency is to reinstate it. In the present instance 

 it cannot be said that Newberry's proposal has become generally 

 adopted, nor has it the sanction of long established usage ; hence 

 the only course open to us is to continue to recognize the original 

 of Redfield's figure as one of the authentic cotypes of this species. 



We are indebted to the generosity of Professor Schuchert 

 for the privilege of reproducing a photograph of this well pre- 

 served exemplar (Plate IX), which is now the property of Yale 

 University Museum. In this will be noted inter alia the Pal- 

 seoniscid-shaped head, forwardly placed orbit, and tolerably 

 distinct outlines of facial and cranial plates. The mandible, un- 

 fortunately, is missing, the striated opercular and tuberculated 

 cheek plates are arranged after a different pattern from the 

 corresponding parts in the Semionotidae, and there is no clear 

 indication of either a circumorbital ring or of branchiostegal 

 rays. 



Another nearly complete example of the same species is il- 

 lustrated in Plate X. Like the first, it was obtained from near 

 Durham, Connecticut, but from a somewhat higher level, the 

 horizon being that known as the posterior shale.^ Mr. S. W. 

 Loper, who collected it, remarks that this is the only good speci- 

 men ever obtained from the beds in question, after many years of 

 fruitless search. The specimen is remarkable for its well preserved 

 squamation, and it also reveals the outline of the head much 

 more satisfactorily than the Redfield cotype. The mandible is 



1 Most of the fossil fishes in the Connecticut valley have been found at two well- 

 marked horizons. One stratum of black shale lies between the lower (anterior, Perci- 

 val) and the thick middle or main lava sheet, another between the main and the 

 upper (posterior, Percival) lava sheet. These two fossiliferous strata have been 

 called accordingly the anterior and the posterior black shale. Davis and Loper, Two 

 Belts of Fossiliferous Black Shale in the Triassic Formation of Connecticut. Bull. 

 Geol. Soc. Am., ii, pp. 415-430. 



