METHODS OF PALAEONTOLOGICAL INQUIRY. 'J T, 



patience expended are means to the end for which the whole 

 has been undertaken, namely, the comparative study of the 

 material. For this purpose it is hardly possible to gather 

 specimens enough, for almost every individual will show some- 

 thing which others will not, and in looking over a great collec- 

 tion, one is tempted to believe that there are no duplicates and 

 that nothing can be spared. Before attempting to make out 

 phylogenies, it is well to determine the complete dental and 

 osteological structure of every available species. From the 

 popular standpoint this is being righteous overmuch and taking 

 most superfluous pains and trouble. The palaeontologist is 

 believed to be able to reconstruct missing types from the 

 merest hint, a single bone or tooth, a scale or feather. In cur- 

 rent literature no supposed scientific method is more frequently 

 cited by way of illustration than this, ex tingue leonem, etc., and 

 yet nothing could be more absurd. This superstition, for it is 

 nothing else, seems endowed with perpetual youth and vigor, 

 and no amount of exposure suffices to kill it; doubtless it will 

 continue to flourish for centuries. It may even be true that 

 the instinctive distrust of palaeontological results which many 

 morphologists feel, is due to this prevalent notion of palaeonto- 

 logical methods; careful workers cannot be expected to put any 

 trust in such easy-going ways of investigation, if they may be 

 dignified by that name. 



Fortunately, the single-bone method of reconstruction is not 

 a practicable one. I say fortunately, because if that method 

 could be trusted, it would imply that all possible types of struc- 

 ture are exemplified among existing animals and that any 

 study of fossils is so much time wasted. So far from being 

 able to work in this fashion, the best and most careful workers 

 have been guilty of gross blunders in the determinations which 

 they have made of isolated limbs or feet. An example or two 

 will make this clear. 



Some years ago I had the pleasure of visiting Dr. Forsyth 

 Major and examining some of the beautiful material which he 

 had gathered in the island of Samos. In the course of conver- 

 sation he expressed his conviction that Chalicotheruim (then 

 known only from skulls) and Ancylotheriwn (known only from 



