107 



He observed that Dr. De Kay seems to have forgotten that my 

 Report was upon the Reptiles of Massachusetts. In my descrip- 

 tion of the " Cistuda Blandingii" I observed " it has been detected 

 as far north as Haverhill ;" to which De Kay adds, " New Hamp- 

 shire, in 44° north latitude." 



Again, — under the head of Kinosternon Pennsylvanicum, Mud 

 Tortoise, Dr. De Kay says, " I find no mention of it in Storer's Re- 

 port on the Reptiles of Massachusetts, although it is cited in Hitch- 

 cock's Catalogue." If he had referred to the preface to that Re- 

 port, he would have found why it was not mentioned. In that pre- 

 face, I use these words : " The Testudo Pennsylvania is plainly 

 confounded with the Sternothcerus odoratus, a widely distributed 

 species." 



Our author has fallen into another singular and altogether inex- 

 cusable error respecting the Triton millepunctatus. While en- 

 gaged in preparing my Report, I met with a beautiful little Sala- 

 mander, which I described to this Society as having all the upper 

 parts of the body, together with the feet, to the extremities of the 

 toes and tail, sprinkled with innumerable black points;" and hence 

 I called it " Salamandra millepunctata." I had an accurate figure 

 drawn, and thought I had found a new species, for the simple rea- 

 son that I could meet with no description to correspond with my 

 specimens. Dr. Holbrook, however, who visited this city while I 

 was laboring upon my Report, thought it had been described by 

 Dr. Harlan under the name of " dorsalis" from, as he describes 

 it, "a white dorsal line extending from the occiput over the tail," 

 which Dr. Holbrook could not point out to me, and which none of 

 my specimens exhibited. Very reluctantly I published it in my 

 Report, under the name of " dorsalis" reserving to myself, how- 

 ever, the liberty of throwing out a few suggestions upon this sub- 

 ject. 



Dr. De Kay, although Dr. Holbrook calls it " dorsalis" is unwil- 

 ling to call it by this name ; but introduces it as the " millepunc- 

 tatus" with the following remarks : " This species had originally 

 the misfortune to be so badly named, and the description, which 

 was taken from a changed cabinet specimen, gave such an imper- 

 fect and false idea of the animal, that we have adopted the name 

 originally applied by Dr. Storer, both as more descriptive in itself, 

 and as being the first true description of the species." I am much 



