282 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN' INSTITUTE. 



has been seen within four miles of tlie present site of the city of 

 Ottawa. There are also numerous records of horns of this deer 

 having been found in different parts of Ontario, both on the surfac3 

 and just below it, many of them in quite a perfect state of preser" 

 vation, precluding the idea of any great antiquity. 



III. and IV. Referring to my notes on Hesperomys leucogaster and 

 Synaptomijs Cooperi, Mr. Thompson flatly accuses me of plagiarising 

 whole paragraphs, quoting them " verbatim or nearly so " fi-om his- 

 " Li.st of the Mammals of ManitoVja," leaving it to be inferred that 

 he had made some»original observations on these rodents that I had 

 copied without giving him credit for them. 



The facts, however, are as follows : — Mr. Thompson, in his " List,"" 

 has copied from Coues and Allen's " Monographs of North American 

 Rodentia " statements concerning the finding of the first of these 

 species in Minnesota close to the international boundary, and th& 

 second both in ^Minnesota and Alaska, and he has drawn the 

 inference that they would be found in Manitoba. I had drawn the- 

 same simple inference Vjefore Mr. Thompson's paper was published. 

 My paragraph referring to the former species is a line and a half long 

 and contains eighteen words, onl}- nine of which (five of them being 

 proper names) are to be found in Mr. Thompson's note on the same 

 animal. My paragraph on <S'. Cooperi contains the same number of" 

 words, ten of which (two being proper names and five prepositions 

 or conjunctions) are also found in Mr. Thompson's note. His ideas- 

 of what is meant by the expression " verbatim or nearly so " are, 

 therefore, evidently broader than those held by people generally. 



V. Regarding the distribution of Lepus sylva'icus in Ontario, Mr 

 Thom])son is probably correct in saying tliat in the northej-n nine- 

 tenths of the province the species is unknown. It is advancing 

 noi-thward through the southern more thickly settled portions of the 

 ]jrovince. 



YI. Conmienting on my "ignorant" remarks on Geomys bursarius 

 Mr. Thompson says that this species " is an animal of the Mississipp 

 valley," and then even he himself goes on to say that it has been 

 found in Southern Manitoba — a fact of which I was not befoie- 

 aware. As he knows perfectly well that neither the Mississippi noi- 



