It is, however, a convenient practice to use these terms in connection with time periods, rock beds, and types of environment, as well as geographical areas. Thus we have such phrases as a “Cretaceous fauna” (attaching the name of a geologic period), a “Benton fauna” (with reference to the fossils of a rock formation), a “marine flora” (using the name of an environment), an “Arctic flora” (which applies to a definite portion of the earth surface and its plant inhabitants). Faunas include animals which many persons do not recognize as such. Sponges, corals, insects, worms, crabs, oysters, and a host of other boneless creatures are grouped together as _invertebrate_ animals, while another group includes the fishes, amphibians (toads, frogs, and salamanders of today), reptiles (crocodiles, lizards, snakes, and turtles being well known varieties), birds, and mammals. This second lot, provided with backbones and skeletons, comprise the great division of _vertebrate_ animals. Floras also include types which are commonly seen but not popularly identified as plants. The algae are perhaps best known as seaweeds, water-silk, and pond scums; fungi as toadstools and moulds. Both groups are large and of important rank in the vegetable kingdom; only the algae, however, are recognized as important fossil producers. Better known types of plants are the mosses, ferns, evergreens, grasses, and the more conspicuous flower-bearing forms, from weed size to tree size. Many rocks owe their character to the work of large colonies of plants or animals, for the living organisms are frequently the active agency which takes dissolved mineral substance from the solvent liquid and gets it back into solid form. The liquid is, of course, the water in which the creatures live, while the mineral substance often becomes a commodity required by a plant or animal in its mode of living. Mollusks have a way of using lime in the production of shells, and many a bed of limestone consists almost entirely of this by-product of molluscan life. Tiny coral polyps build complicated and beautiful structures from the same mineral substance. Either intact or in broken condition, these structures contribute in a large way to the making of limestones. Algae, among the lowliest of plants, have done extensive work along similar lines, and numerous invertebrate animals could be named as important factors in the production of rocks. Many of the shells and other fabrications retain their peculiar patterns long after the extermination of their makers, and a highly informative part of the fossil record is provided in this manner. It is also by far the larger portion of the record, for the earlier ages of prehistoric time failed to produce a vertebrate animal of any kind, while the invertebrate record dates back to pre-Cambrian time. FORMATIONS