JEFFRIES WYMAN 189 



outward characters and of the habits. A joint memoir was pre- 

 sented by us to the Boston Society of Natural History, Au- 

 gust i8th, 1847. 



In the meantime Mr. Samuel Stutchbury, Curator of the 

 Bristol Museum in England, having learned of Dr. Savage his 

 discovery, obtained through Captain Wagstaff, three crania 

 which he immediately placed in the hands of Professor Owen 

 for description. An account of them was presented to the Zoo- 

 logical Society of London, February 22, 1848, six months after 

 our memoir had been read in Boston. 



Professor Owen in a letter to Dr. Savage acknowledges that 

 our description established the specific characters of the gorilla 

 and that priority belonged to us. Through a vote of the Council 

 of the Zoological Society the osteological characters, as set forth 

 by me, were printed as an appendix to Professor Owen's memoir, 

 It does not appear, however, either in the Proceedings or the 

 Transactions of the Society at what time our memoir was published 

 nor that we had anticipated him in our description. 1 



The credit of the discovery clearly belongs to Drs. Wilson and 

 Savage, chiefly to the latter, who first became convinced of the 

 fact that the species was new and who first brought it to the 

 notice of naturalists. The species therefore stands recorded 

 Troglodytes gorilla, Savage. 



In the following account the notice of the external characters 

 and habits was prepared by Dr. Savage. The introductory 

 portion and the description of the crania and bones, and also 

 the determination of the differential characters on which the 

 establishment of the species rests, was prepared by me. In 

 view of this last fact Dr. Savage thought, as will be seen in 

 letter, that the species should stand in my name; but this I 

 declined. 2 



In a conversation I had with Dr. A. A. Gould with regard to a 

 suitable name, when I informed him that Hanno stated that the 

 natives called the wild men of Africa Gorilla, he at once sug- 

 gested the specific name gorilla, which was adopted. 



1 The italics are mine. I am unable to ascertain or even to conjecture the 

 date of Owen's reception of the first information as to the paper of Wyman 

 and Savage. His letter to Wyman, dated July 24, 1848 (copied in the latter's 

 private copy of the gorilla memoir already described), begins: "I duly re- 

 ceived," etc., but duly is a very indefinite word. Upon this matter no light is 

 thrown in the Life of Owen by his son. 



2 The italics are the present writer's. 



