18 Talbot — New York Helderbergian Crinoids. 



crimes seoparius is said to range from the Manlius almost to 

 the top of the Coeymans. Most of the specimens in the Yale 

 collection were found about forty-six feet from the top of the 

 section in a twelve-inch layer containing slabs rich in Uomo- 

 crinus seoparius and also specimens of Melocrinus pachydac- 

 tylus, Anomalocystites cornutus, Lepocrinites gebhardi and 

 the ophiuroids. Cordylocrinus plumosus is abundant in the 

 lower bed mentioned later. 



The collection from North Litchfield is chiefly from two 

 horizons and is extremely rich. One of these beds is a lime- 

 stone four inches thick in which are specimens of Melocrinus 

 nobilissimus with very large crowns and very stoi.it, long stems 

 and a large form of Cordylocrinus plumosus in comparative 

 abundance, the majority of the individuals showing many long 

 cirri crowding around the calyx. The material from this zone 

 has one specimen of Lepocrinites gebhardi and several of 

 Homocrinus seoparius. Although all the fossils in this bed 

 are of large size, especially is this true of Melocrinus nobilis- 

 *simus, whose columns are very thick and, though only frag- 

 ments, measure from fifty to seventy centimeters in length. 

 This is long for Paleozoic crinoids. Wachsmuth and Springer 

 state that no columns over three feet in length have been seen 

 from the Paleozoic and that generally they are not over one 

 foot long.* Here there are numbers over two feet in length. 



The other horizon, a few inches higher in the section, has 

 furnished slabs covering a floor space of some sixty-five square 

 feet, slabs that are literally covered with crinoid stems and 

 crowns. Here, too, as in the lower bed, are stems over two 

 feet long. The forms represented are Mariacrinus beecheri, 

 Melocrinus nobilissimus, M. pachydactylus, Thysanocrinus 

 arborescens and Cordylocrinus plumosus. To show the rela- 

 tive abundance of these species, an enumeration of the indivi- 

 duals on the slabs was taken and by actual count there were 

 found, of Mariacrinus beeclieri thirty-one specimens, of Melo- 

 crinus nobilissimus six, of M. pachydactylus one, of Thysano- 

 crinus arborescens ten, and of Cordylocrinus plumosus eight 

 hundred and seventy-three, making a total of nine hundred and 

 twenty-one specimens. In addition to these are numerous 

 crinoid columns, several gastropods and brachiopods and one 

 cephalopocl. On a small surface of six square feet there are 

 three hundred and twenty crinoids. 



The cover of this bed is also in the collection and it is esti- 

 mated that two-thirds as many more crinoids are on its lower 

 surface. This enumeration was made before anything was 

 done toward developing the slabs and such preparation may 



* North American Crinoidea Camerata, vol. i, p. 39; Mem. Mus. Comp. 

 Zool., Harvard College, vol. xx, Cambridge, Mass., May, 1897. 



