470 WILLIAM THALBITZER. 
now acquired JoHAN PETERSEN’s collection, and might well publish 
the inventory list. As long as I had access to Hr. JoHAN PETERSEN's 
private collection, I could of course make use of his inventory with dis- 
cretion, but I had neither the obligation, nor any right, to make it public. 
In the Museum, I had access to the Holm collection and others, but 
not to the inventory lists. For these and other reasons then, I consi- 
dered it out of place to fill several pages of my work with the catalogue 
already published (in Medd. om Grønl. vol. X pp. 351—358); I con- 
tented myself with giving in extenso Hotm’s introduction to his list 
(see my work 1914 p. 753). 
On the other hand I have of course the right, and excellent reason, 
to publish the inventory of my own collection, either in part or in full. 
To suggest that this should have been done at the expense of the lists 
for the Holm and Petersen collections is simply nonsense. 
With an outward show of science, Hr. THOMSEN here endeavours 
to create the impression that a Museum Expert is now coming along 
to help us out. I do not think, however, that these specimens of inven- 
tory criticism will excite admiration outside the select circle of the Eth- 
nographical Department, and it would perhaps have been well for the 
reputation of the gentlemen concerned had the criticism in question 
never appeared. 
p. 412. As to the observation that “another scientific opinion pro- 
nounced it a hare” I am somewhat in the dark as to what is here in- 
tended, but it is doubtless of slight import. I had my information, as it 
happens, from a native Greenlander, who has himself seen the polar 
bear rear up on its hindlegs to defend itself against attacking dogs. 
And my informant is certainly more competent to judge than either 
the Museum official or his zoological friend. 
p. 413—414. Surely criticism such as this cannot be squeezed 
within the bounds of common fairness. If only as an example, it seems 
worth while looking into the manner in which Hr. THOMSEN deals with 
some amendments made by myself in the later list, or my own correc- 
tions of unavoidable misunderstandings in my earlier investigations. 
In the course of my ethnographical studies, I gradually attained 
to a more correct appreciation of certain objects in AMDRUP's finds from 
the depopulated part of the East Coast, and was thus in 1914 able to 
put forward a more likely explanation of two or three implements than 
in 1909. Now, after having had the opportunity of consulting my final 
1 For those who have not time to look up the extensive references of my 
critic I would merely call to mind that a period of several years elapsed 
between the publication of “List I” 1909 and “List II” 1914, the latter 
being thus a revised, improved and augmented list. In the latter, more- 
over, it is naturally only a printer’s error which gives the numbers of 
Figs. 561 and 562 as 561 and 562; Hr. Tuomsen, it would seem, was unable 
to realise this. 
