238 Correspondence — Prof. E. D. Cope. 



included in the annual volume must be reduced, and thus the issue of 

 the monographs delayed. This announcement is not altogether 

 creditable to the geologists of Great Britain. The number of persons 

 interested in the study of this science has not diminished, nay, has 

 become decidedly larger, since the foundation of the Palseonto- 

 graphical Society. Many more than those whose names are on the 

 list of subscribers could well spare the annual guinea needed to 

 secure the efficiency of the work, but it may be feared that there is 

 among them some lack of public spirit. The rapid development of 

 every branch of geology has perhaps contributed to this by render- 

 ing its students more of specialists than they formerly were; but 

 even if the number of monographs in the series bearing on this or 

 that man's hobby be small, he is bound, I think, on public grounds 

 to see that this useful work does not languish for want of funds. 

 In almost every career of life there are certain associations to which 

 one feels bound to belong : may I then be forgiven for suggesting 

 that every geologist not absolutely impecunious should consider 

 the Palseontographical Society one of these. True, the number of 

 back volumes is now formidable to those who desire a complete set, 

 but these can be purchased on easier terms by subscribers, and the 

 less wealthy student may console himself for a broken series by the 

 thought that he is doing a good work in securing its continuance. 



T. G. BONNEY. 



NOTES ON PHENACODUS. 



Sir, — I must remark on your late article on Phenacodus l (Geo- 

 logical Magazine, No. 260), that having selected for publication 

 my earliest conclusions regarding it, issued in 1881, my more 

 mature views are not stated. In order to insure the dissemination of 

 the latter rather than the former, through your journal, I give the 

 following points. 



A few months after the publication of the note from which you 

 have principally copied, I published a systematic analysis of the 

 Uno'ulata in the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 

 (1882), in which it was shown that the carpal bones in Phenacodus 

 are in linear and not alternating series, and that it therefore cannot 

 be referred to the Perissodactyla. With the Hyracoidea and other 

 forms having similar carpal and tarsal characters it was placed in an 

 order Taxeopoda. This order I regarded and still regard as ancestral 

 to all Ungulata, Amblypoda and Proboscidea included. It thus 

 realized, so far, the prophecy which I made in 1874 (Journal 

 Academy Philad.), that the ancestral type of higher Mammalia 

 would prove to be pentadactyle and bunodont. The history of this 

 question is set forth in my illustrated account of the Condylarthra 

 published in the "American Naturalist" for 1884. 



A further study of the extinct Taxeopoda has shown me that 



although furnished with hoof-like unequal phalanges, they are not 



very different from the Lemurs of the primitive type known as the 



Adapidse. I now believe that the order Taxeopoda must include 



1 See February No. pp. 49-52, PL II. 



