Osgood — The Name of tin Roch/ Mountain Sheep, 59 



only throw the date of canadensis forward to 1804, which would 

 make it al leasl of even date with cervina. 



The existence of such an error is now shown by an exhaustive 

 reexamination of all the literature set forth by Dr. .1. A. Allen 

 in a paper* the main point of which is the discovery that one 

 of the volumes of the Naturalists' Miscellany closed in July 

 instead of August, therefore indicating that the part containing 

 the name Ovis canadensis did not appear until January or 

 February, 1804, instead of December, 1803, as previously sup- 

 posed. Although Dr. Allen has not so regarded it, the im- 

 portance of this discovery seems to lie in the fact that the 

 matter was changed from one of priority to one of the t reatment 

 of names of even date. The question of dates is now thoroughly 

 sifted and it seems extremely unlikely that it will ever be 

 possible to go behind Dr. Allen's evidence, which is to the 

 effect that both names appeared early in 1804, and that beyond 

 this nothing can or ever will he known. His words (loc. 

 cit., p. 2) are: 



"The present paper originated in an attempt to settle the question of 

 priority between tin- names Ovis cervina Desmarest ami Ovis canadensis 

 Shaw, both of which prove to have Ween published early in the year 



ism." 



Again (p. 11): 



•• The careful collation of Shaw and Xodder's work given below shows 

 thai the actual date of publication of this name \_canadensis] was almosl 

 unquestionably February, 1804, and could net have been in 1803." 



His conclusion, however, is the same as his former one and he 

 continues to urge the adoption of the name cervina because of 

 its title-page date. Although little more than a year lias passed, 

 usage has again failed to conform to Ins interpretation and we 

 still have some authors using cervina and others canadensis. 

 Thus, Grinnellt has employed cervina, while Bailey J and 

 Miller £ show their preference for canadensis. The case for 

 canadensis seems sufficiently covered by the fact of its current 

 use at the time cervina was first cited from 1804 by a modern 

 author. This being the case, the attempt to displace it violated 



* Hull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., xxxi, pp. 1-29, Mar. 1. 1912. 



i niv. Calif. Pubs., Zool., X. pp. 143-153, May 9, 1912. 

 | Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash., xxv. pp. L09-110, June 29, 1912. 

 5 r. 8. Nat. Mus., Hull. 79, p. :'■'.'.".. Dec. 31, 1912. 



