470 Prof. Milne-Edwards's Reply to Prof. Sedgwick. 



parts of our Monograph, M. Haime and myself were desirous of 

 obtaining a similar favour from the Cambridge Museum, and 

 consequently an application for the loan of specimens was made, 

 in the first instance by us to Prof. M^Coy, and subsequently to 

 Prof. Sedgwick by the Honorary Secretary of the Palseontogra- 

 phical Society, my most esteemed friend Mr. Bowerbank. But 

 I was informed that Prof. Sedgwick considered the loan of such 

 specimens not compatible with the regulations of the Cam- 

 bridge Museum. 



M. Haime and I were fully aware that we had no right to 

 throw any censure on that decision ; but as it occasioned some 

 omissions in our Monograph, we deemed it necessary to state 

 the circumstance that had rendered our work more incomplete 

 than we had at first hoped it would have been ; and consequently 

 we did so in the part of our publication where those omissions 

 began to have some importance. 



This simple statement appears to have displeased Prof. Sedg- 

 wick, and in a letter addressed to me, on the 8th of December 

 last, he denied the veracity of it ; saying that no application for 

 the loan of the Cambridge fossil corals had ever been made ; 

 that had such a request reached him, he would have laid it before 

 the Trustees and Auditors of the Museum, and should probably 

 have obtained their consent. 1 immediately answered Prof. Sedg- 

 wick, reminding him of the circumstances above alluded to, and 

 adding, that if I had been misinformed, M. Haime and I would, 

 with pleasure, rectify our statement in the next Fasciculus of 

 our Monograph. But I heard nothing more on the subject, till 

 I received from my bookseller the Number of your ' Annalaf 

 containing Prof. SedgwicVs article. ♦ 



That article shows clearly, that when writing tome in December 

 last, Prof. Sedgwick had forgotten the real state of the case ; that 

 an application for the loan of specimens had been made on my 

 behalf by Mr. Bowerbank as v/ell as by myself, and had been re- 

 jeded by the justly celebrated geologist of Cambridge. Professor 

 Sedgwick now supposes that the unfortunate negotiation was 

 relative to certain Oolitic fossils only, and not to the Palaeozoic 

 corals as well as the former. This distinction is not, in our 

 opinion, well founded, nor is it concordant with the recollections 

 of Mr. Bowerbank, who had written to Cambridge on the sub- 

 ject j but even were it so, I should not consider it now as being 

 of much importance, since the tenour of the article just published 

 by Prof. Sedgwick clearly shows that at all events the result 

 of the application would have been the same; that is to say, 

 negative. 



It is also necessary to remark here, that the corals, which we 

 were most desirous to obtain, were those from the OoHte and 



