l6o SECTION B. VERTEBRATA. 



I may perhaps be permitted to mention, in this connection, my 

 own experience in the matter of type specimens. As a student in 

 Germany, years ago, I had my attention called particularly to this 

 subject, and was then strongly impressed with the importance of 

 using only good specimens for first descriptions. This rule I have 

 endeavoured to follow. My researches, especially in western North 

 America, have resulted in the discovery of more than one thousand 

 new species of extinct vertebrates, and of these I have described 

 about five hundred. Had I been satisfied to use inferior specimens 

 as types, I might have increased the number by one-half at least. 



No small part of the present literature of the paleontology 

 of vertebrates is based on names applied to fragments, and a long 

 period of more accurate work will be required before these can be 

 rejected or incorporated into the digested knowledge of the subject. 

 I recall one collection of types of extinct vertebrates, described in 

 a single volume, and nearly a hundred in number, the greater part 

 of which are uncharacteristic fragments, well fitted to burden science 

 for all time with a legacy of uncertainty and doubt. Such work is 

 a positive discouragement to all future investigators in the same 

 field, and its value to science may well be questioned. 



The necessity of greater care in selecting type specimens, in 

 Paleontology, at least, needs no argument to any student of the 

 science who has done sufficient original work to appreciate the 

 increasing difficulties of accurate investigation. To those who have 

 had less experience, a word of warning, I trust, will not be in vain. 



(2) The Preservation of Type Specimens. 



The careful preservation of their own type specimens is a 

 sacred duty on the part of all original investigators, and hardly less 

 so of those who are the custodians of such invaluable evidence of 

 the progress of natural science. 



Local museums, as a rule, are less desirable repositories of type 

 specimens than private collections, since the former usually can 

 have little chance of permanent care, while the latter, if important, 

 may, perhaps, by gift or purchase, become part of a large endowed 

 museum, where those in control are more likely to appreciate the 

 importance of types, and carefully preserve them. 



For the preservation of type specimens, fire-proof buildings are 

 indispensable. I recall no less than five Museums of Natural 

 History, in America, that have either been destroyed, or their 

 contents consumed, or seriously damaged by fire, since I became 

 actively interested in natural science. Several others, in the mean- 

 time, have had narrow escapes from the same danger, so that 

 I regard all type specimens as insecure that are not preserved in 

 buildings practically safe from fire. 



Another danger to which type specimens are subject, is loss or 

 injury during transit, when loaned or otherwise sent away from 

 their regular place of deposit. This evil has become so serious, 



