50 NEW DOUBTS RESPECTING 



of the original fragments upon which I raised these doubts, 

 having only seen the figures and descriptions of them which 

 had been published by M. Constant Prevost, Mr. Broderip, 

 and Dr. Buckland. I therefore concluded my memoir by in- 

 voking the aid of those skilful observers who had the fossil 

 remains in their possession, or at their disposal, to assist in 

 the farther examination of the question. 



The result of my appeal has not, I am happy to say, been 

 long delayed. Professor Buckland, who has two of these 

 fragments under his care in the Ashmolean Museum, at Ox- 

 ford, being about to visit Paris, Dr. Roberton, at the sugges- 

 tion of M. Laurillard, happily thought of requesting him to 

 bring them with him, which he did ; but unfortunately for me, 

 and perhaps for the question, the day on which Dr. Roberton 

 wished me to pass an evening at his house with Dr. Buck- 

 land, I had set out for the country, and thus lost the oppor- 

 tunity of clearing up my doubts, and of correcting any errors 

 I might have committed. Nevertheless this courteous and li- 

 beral attention of Professor Buckland has not been without 

 advantageous results, since, during my absence, four persons, 

 — M. Agassiz, M. Valenciennes, and two of our fellow-mem- 

 bers, M. E. GeofTroy and M. Dumeril, have made known to 

 the Academy their observations on the same subject; and 

 thus the inquiry is seriously taken up. 



The first of these observations in point of date is due to M. 

 Agassiz, who, in a letter addressed to the Academy on the 3rd 

 of September, and inserted in the 'Connotes Rendus,' (p. 537, 

 2nd. sem., 1838), claims priority in the view which I had ad- 

 duced, by saying that since the year 1835 he had offered an 

 opinion concerning the supposed Didelphis from Stonesfield, 

 perfectly in accordance with mine. Although I certainly had 

 no knowledge of the fact, it would have been very unskilful 

 of me not to have supported my opinion by those of observers 

 like Prof. Grant, M. Agassiz, and M. Meyer ; I therefore did 

 so, and I thought I should secure myself against all reproach 

 on this subject, by quoting M. Agassiz as having at first en- 

 tertained the same views as myself, but as having afterwards 

 apparently abandoned them. As to the rest, I am far from re- 

 fusing myself the credit, which I may claim as a matter of 

 justice, of having added some fresh details upon this subject. 

 M. Agassiz appears to have mentioned these fossils for the 

 first time in 1835, in a very short note inserted in the German 

 Journal of MM. Leonhard and Bronn, p. 186 ; and, according 

 to M. Valenciennes, the object of this note is to establish, in 

 a definite manner, the opinion that the Stonesfield ani- 

 mals are undoubtedly mammals, but that their affinity with 



