APKIL21, 1899.] 



SCIENCE. 



59.: 



fact, the Carboniferous formation in so far as 

 this has been recognized in the interior district of 

 British Columbia, aud is the local representative 

 of that formation. 



George M. Dawson. 

 Geological Survey of Canada, 

 April 10, 1899. 



ON THE NAMES OF CERTAIN NORTH AMERICAN 

 FOSSIL VERTEBRATES. 



The writer, having recently had occasion to 

 examine the literature pertaining to some of 

 the fossil mammals of North America, has 

 made the following notes, which he desires to 

 record : 



Hemiganus, a genus established by Professor 

 Cope, had for its type species H. vultuosits. 

 The species H. otariidens was described later. 

 Dr. J. L. Wortman has, however, shown (Bull. 

 Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., ix., p. 167) that E. 

 vultuosns is a synonym of Psittacotherium multi- 

 fragum. The species otariidens is, therefore, 

 left without generic name. I hereby propose 

 WoRTMANiA, in recognition of the valuable 

 work which has been done by Dr. Wortman in 

 vertebrate paleontology. The species will be 

 Wortmania otariidens (Cope). 



A similar case occurs among the camels. The 

 type of the genus Protolabis of Cope is P. het- 

 erodontua. Dr. Wortman's investigation (Bull. 

 Amer. Mus., x., p. 120) have led him to the 

 conclusion that this so-called species is the same 

 as the earlier described Procamelus robustus. 

 The type species being removed, the remaining 

 species requires a new generic name. I pro- 

 pose MiOLABls. The type will be M. transmon- 

 tanus (Cope). 



It has also been ascertained by Dr. Wortman 

 that the type of the genus Systemodon, S. tapi- 

 rinus, is really a Hyracotherium, in which genus 

 it was formerly placed. The species which 

 have been associated with tapirinus, viz, semi- 

 Mans, primsevus and protapirinus are, therefore, 

 without generic name. I offer HomogalAX 

 (ofioyala^, a foster brother). As type of this 

 genus I take Dr. Wortman's Systemodon pri- 

 mxvus (Bull. Amer. Mus., viii., p. 89, fig. 3). 



Professor Cope has described from the Pliocene 

 of Louisiana a fos-il horse which he calls Equus 

 interinedius (Proc. Amer. Phil. Soc. , xxxiv., p. 



463). This name has, however, been preoccu- 

 pied for a quaternary horse of Europe. Troues- 

 sart (Cat. Mam., 1898, p. 794) quotes it as a 

 synonym of E. cahallus. The first mention I 

 find of the name is in Riitimeyer (Abhaudl. 

 schweiz. pal. Ges., ii., p. 24, 1877). For Pro- 

 fessor Cope's E. intermedins I propose Equus eous. 



Interea voluores Pyrois Eous et Aethon, 

 Solis eqni, quartusque Pblegon, hinnitibus auras 

 Flammiteris implent, pedibusque repagula pulsant. 



— Ovid. 



Certain generic names of vertebrates have, 

 without justice, it seems to me, been relegated 

 to synonomy. 



In 1881 Professor Cope established a genus 

 of Condylarthra which he called Protpgonia. 

 Later he correctly concluded that this name 

 had been preoccupied, probably by Protogonius, 

 Hiibner. He, therefore, proposed to substitute 

 for it Euprotogonia, which name first appeared 

 in a paper by Earle (Amer. Nat., 1893, p. 378, 

 foot-note). In a recent paper Dr. Matthew 

 (Bull. Amer. Mus., ix., p. 303) accepts this 

 name. At the same time he shows that those 

 remains which had originally been described by 

 Professor Cope as Mioclsenus floverianus belong 

 to the eai'lier described Euprotogonia puercensis. 

 But, for this M. floverianus, Scott had in 1892 

 (Proc. Acad. Sci., Phila., p. 299) proposed the 

 genus Tetraclienodon. The latter name, there- 

 fore, antedates Euprotogonia and must replace it. 



In the same excellent paper (p. 268) Dr. Mat- 

 thew adopts Scott's genus Protoehriacus, founded 

 in 1892, in preference to Cope's Loxolophus, pro- 

 posed in 1885. The reason assigned for this 

 preference is that Professor Cope's ' distinctions, 

 so far as made, were based on error.' I do 

 not believe that the best usage among natural- 

 ists at this day favors the rejection of generic 

 names because of errors, real or supposed, in 

 the definitions. It seems to me that Loxolophus 

 must be reinstated. 



With exceptions, few but important, Oreodon 

 has been employed by writers for a well-known 

 genus of Artiodactyles. Flower and Lydekker 

 in their joint work on Mammalia use Cotylops, 

 on the assumption that Oreodon is preoccupied 

 by Orodus of Agassiz, a genus of fossil fishes» 

 Without now discussing this conclusion, I will 



