iSaS.] Correspondence. 121 



on this point, in fact. I did not then blame him at all, for I knew verj' well 

 the disadvantages under which he labors, and which he justly pleads as 

 extenuating circumstances. But when a student knows these difficulties 

 himself, he has no excuse for rushing into print with his so-called dis- 

 covery because he does not find this small muscle mentioned in a few 

 English works, either too general or too special for the purpose. There 

 was no n.m\ of hurrying the publication of such half-digested matter; if 

 Dr. Shufeldt had inquired from one of his many correspondents who had 

 access to the literature, and had postponed the heralding of the discoverv 

 until its importance had been confirmed, he might have saved himself 

 considerable trouble and the mortification of a correction. 



Now only a few words in reply to Dr. Shufeldt's letter in 'The Auk' 

 (1S87, pp. 353-356), and in order to be brief and to avoid repetitions, I 

 shall take up his points seriatim. 



It is curious to hear Dr. Shufeldt call the authorities whom I quoted 

 "dissectors, as a rule, who did not especially look into the structure of 

 the birds with the view of deterinining their affinities." Now the fact is 

 quite the reverse, and by his remark Dr. Shufeldt clearly proves that he 

 does not know these men, nor their works. It is sufficient to state tha* 

 most of them are comparative systematists whose aims and achievements 

 in this latter direction make Dr. Shufeldt appear a mere "dissector" hy 

 comparison. 



Dr. Shufeldt in speaking of my defense of Professor Garrod says: "I 

 am, as it were, directly charged with doing Professor Garrod a 'great 

 injustice', and 'gravely misrepresenting' him. as //"that were the sole aim 

 of my original description" (italics mine). Suffice it to say that the 

 '•as if" is a pure insinuation. I have made no such allusion nor have I 

 hinted at Dr. Shufeldt's aim. There is not a word to indicate that I 

 thought Dr. Shufeldt misrepresented Garrod willingly or knowingly. 

 He did misrepresent him nevertheless. 



That Dr. Shufeldt failed to find a trace of propatagialis ciicullaris in 

 two specimens of Tyramnis tyranmis while I myself discovered distinct 

 muscular elements, shows very plainly the unstable character and com- 

 parative unimportance of this muscular slip. 



We now come to the second half of Dr. Shufeldt's reply, which may 

 safely be characterized as an attempt to raise sufficient dust to conceal the 

 real questions at issue, for he takes nearly a whole page of the valuable 

 space of 'The Auk' to criticise such parts of my drawings as have no bear- 

 ing upon the discussion. But as he has raised these side-issues, and finally 

 comes back to them in the finishing paragraph of his reply with a some- 

 what supercilious allusion, lam obliged to ask some space in order to 

 demonstrate how utterly devoid of foundation his allegations are. First 

 he makes some remarks in regard to the scale to which my figures were 

 stated to have been drawn, viz., one third natural size. Any "intelligent" 

 reader will at once see that this statement is due to a clerical, or a typo- 

 graphical error. I received no proof of the figures illustrating my original 

 article nor of the explanatory text accompanying them. Of course when I 



