1859—1863] falconer's elephants 227 



name Elephas Columbi, a designation which was recognised and adopted 

 by Continental writers. In 1S58 (Brit. Assoc. Leeds) Owen made use 

 of the name " Elephas texianus, Blake" for the species which Falconer 

 had previously named E. Columbi, but without referring to Falconer's 

 determination ; he gave no authority, " thus by the established usage 

 in zoology producing it as his own." In 1861 Owen in his Paleontology, 

 2nd edit., 1861, describes the elephant as E. texianus, Blake. To 

 Mr. Blake's name is appended an asterisk which refers to a footnote 

 to Bollaert's Antiquities of S. America, 2nd edit. According to Falconer 

 (p. 46) no second edition of Bollaert had appeared at the time of writing 

 (August, 1862), and in the first edition (i860) he was "unable to detect 

 the occurrence of the name even, of E. texianus, anywhere throughout 

 the volume " ; though Bollaert mentions the fact that he had deposited, 

 in the British Museum, the tooth of a fossil elephant from Texas. 



In November, 1861, Blake wrote a paper in the Geologist in which the 

 new elephant no longer bears his own name as authority, but is described 

 as " Elephas texianus, Owen, E. Columbi, Falconer." Finally, in another 

 paper the name of Owen is dropped and the elephant is once more his 

 own. As Falconer remarks, "the usage of science does not countenance 

 such accommodating arrangements, when the result is to prejudice 

 a prior right." 



It may be said, no doubt, that the question who first described a given 

 species is a petty one ; but this view has a double edge, and applies most 

 strongly to those who neglect the just claims of their predecessors. 



Down, Jan. 5th [1S63]. 

 I finished your Elephant paper 1 last night, and you Lettei . 155 

 must let me express my admiration at it. All the points 

 strike me as admirably worked out, and very many most 

 interesting. I was particularly struck with your remarks on 

 the character of the ancient Mammalian Fauna of N. 

 America ; 2 it agrees with all I fancied was the case, namely 

 a temporary irruption of S. American forms into N. 

 America, and conversely, I chuckled a little over the specimen 

 of M. Andium " hesitating " between the two groups. 3 I have 



1 " On the American Fossil Elephant of the Regions bordering the 

 Gulf of Mexico (E. Columbi, Falc), etc." Nat. Hist. Rev. 1863, p. 81. 

 (Cf. Letter to Lyell. Life and Letters, II., p. 389; also Origin, Ed. vi., 

 p. 306.) See Letter 143. 



2 Falconer, p. 62. This passage is marked in Darwin's copy. 



3 In speaking of the characters of Mastodon Andium, Falconer refers 

 to a former paper by himself (Quart, fourn. Geol. Soc, Vol. XIII. 1857, 

 p. 313), in which he called attention "to the exceptional character of 

 certain specimens of M. Andium, as if hesitating between [the groups] 

 Tetralophodon and Triloplwdon" (ibid., p. too). 



