Occasional Papers of the Museinn of Zoology 7 



This is Dr. Van Denburgh's answer, somewhat different 

 in character from that of Dr. Thompson's. 



Jan. 2, 1913. 

 Mr. Dear Mr. Barbour: — 



Your letter of Dec. 14th has just reached me. It con- 

 tains the first definite information I have received regarding 

 the actual publication of papers by Dr. Thompson. I had 

 reason to believe that he was probably about to publish, and 

 it was for this reason that I rushed the diagnoses of new forms 

 into print last July. The story is a rather long and unpleas- 

 ant one. Dr. Thompson, as you perhaps know, is a naval 

 .surgeon. After his row with Alexander Agassiz, he came to 

 me and said he had been very badly treated and had resolved 

 to give up fishes and devote himself to a study of snakes, ex- 

 clusively. He was then on his way to the Philippines, and 

 asked me if I would help him with his work if he collected ex- 

 tensively all groups of reptiles and amphibians for the Acad- 

 emy. This was in the winter of 1905-1906. Later large col- 

 lections were secured in China, Japan, the Loo Choo Islands 

 and Formosa. I enclose a few extracts from letters from him 

 to me and a copy of a letter which I sent him. May 6th, 1912, 

 ■vhich may help you to understand the situation and the e:>; 

 treme difficulty of dealing with this erratic individual.. Pre- 

 vious to January, 191 1, I had spent much time working up 

 these collections and had in MSS. all the descriptions I have 

 recently published. Thompson then expressed himself as 

 much pleased with this work, but when I let him take the MSS. 

 he went through it and made a list of all my new species and 

 subspecies, by name. He then proposed that I should give him 

 joint authorship in all papers I shovdd ever write (with two 

 exceptions noted in letter) whether or not he had anything to 

 do with their preparation. This I, of course, declined to do. 



