106 J. Hall on a question of Priority. 
Dr. Lindstrém, Dr. ela Prof. DeKoninck, Dr. F. Roemer, 
Edward Desor, Dr. A. yon Vo Iborth, and the Tmperial Society 
of Naturalists of oe These, with one exception, were 
sent in_packages with other publications, through the Smith- 
soman Institution, and are marked in my list as having been 
forwarded from Albany on the 7th of April, 1871. The: pam- 
phlet is noticed in the Jahrbuch for 1871, p. 989. 
On the 7th of April, 1871, the printing establishment of 
Weed, Parsons & Co. was destroy ed by fire, together with the 
23d Report on the State Mac eens (printed to nearly 200 pages), 
the lithographic stones, and ster diine else pertaining to that 
work. In the confusion which followed, and with the neces- 
sity on the part of the State printer to furnish certain docu- 
ments as soon as possible, no attention was given to the State 
Museum Report for several months. Had there existed in my 
mind the least doubt about publication, I should naturally gee 
Deuce an additional ab 
asily have been done at any printing dffice, It has usually 
attention. 
From the tenor of Mr. Billings’ statements in this Journal and 
especially in the Naturalist, any reader would suppose that I 
had borrowed specimens from the Canadian Geological Survey 
on which to found my descriptions, or conclusions, concerning 
the genera there published as RuyNosBoivs and Drvono1.us, 
and then endeavored to keep him in ignorance of what I h 
done. This would certainly have been an absurdity, and more- 
over it is not true. The only specimens borrowed of the Sur- 
vey, having the remotest relation to RHYNOBOLUS, were of Zr7- 
* If the fact of being on sale with booksellers is necessary for publication, the 
question could certainly be raised regarding all the State Museum Reports; for 
the State of New York has never authorized their sale. 
