APPENDIX. 61 



undue advantage may be taken of an answer given on the spur of the 

 moment. 



With many apologies for inflicting this long scrawl upon you, 

 Believe me, 



Your's most truly, 



EDWD. CHARLESWORTH. 

 Richd. Owen, Esq. 



P. S. — Mr. Wood made a mistake about Sir James Alexander ; Mr. 

 Lyell's remark was, that the Quarterly Reviewer was a personal friend of 

 your's. The spirit of the observation was not affected by the error as to 

 names. 



[It is hardly necessary to add that this letter was written 

 without my anticipating the possibility of its publication. 

 My copy of it was furnished me by Prof. Owen.] — Ed. 



No. 38. 



Park Cottages, Regent's Park. 

 My dear Sir, 



With reference to the tooth which 1 have lately de- 

 scribed as a bicuspid of a Macacus, I can only repeat, that 1 never sus- 

 pected it to belong to a monkey till October last, when, not without some 

 feeling of mortification, I went to Mr. Lyell, to confess that I had misled 

 him by mistaking it for the the tooth of a 'possum. Had the case been as 

 you suppose it, I should have warned Mr. L. at Birmingham not to speak 

 confidently of a Didelphys. 



The circumstance I best remember connected with your visit to the 

 Hunterian Museum in August last, was the painful impression pro- 

 duced by my becoming aware of your intention to publish, as your own 

 discovery, the quadrumanous nature of the molar which had previously 

 been submitted to my examination by Mr. Searles Wood ; but which im- 

 pression was in a great degree removed, by the promptness with which you 

 yielded to my remonstrance on the impropriety of that step. 



I heartily wish that I had neyer seen any of these mammiferous teeth, 

 or that you had described them in 1837, when you first became acquainted 

 with them. 



Believe me, my dear Sir, 



Faithfully your's, 



RICHD. OWEN. 

 [Post mark of Nov. 14th.] 

 Edw. Charlesworth, Esq. 



No- 39. 



My dear Sir, 



Our respective impressions as to some of the circumstances 

 attending the publication of the London-clay mammiferous remains, ap- 

 pear so widely to diff'er, that I fear it will be of little use for me to tell 

 you that I did not intend to publish as my own the discovery of the quad- 

 drumanous nature of the molar tooth in the possession of Mr. Wood. 

 Had 1 contemplated the so doing, my communicating (as you intimate 

 that I did), that intention to yourself with whom the identification exclu- 



