INTRODUCTION. 7 



In i860 Spencer F. Baird, then assistant secretary of the Smithsonian 

 Institution, said in the annual report of that year: 



The great value of the museum of the Institution at the present time consists in 

 its being the depository of so many type specimens, or those upon which the first 

 description of species has been established. These constitute the great attraction to 

 the scientific investigators, as, however carefully prepared, the published description 

 or figures of any species may be, there is almost always some doubtful point to be 

 settled alone by examination of the types. For this reason these are always guarded 

 with jealous care, and considered of much more value than new and undescribed 

 materials (p. 76). 



In the following year, however, we find the Institution adopting a 

 rule to ' ' distribute as widely as possible to scientific institutions * * * 

 the duplicate type specimens" (p. 41). In all probability this referred 

 rather to typical specimens than to type specimens in the modern sense, 

 yet it seems that some types have been either given away or lost through 

 the neglect of authors to return all the material loaned them for study. 

 However, not many types have been lost during the past fifty years, 

 probably less than 100 specimens. Some of these are known to be in 

 other museums, but as they were collected on Government expeditions 

 they should seemingly be in the National Museum. 



ON TYPE SPECIMENS IN NATURAL HISTORY. 



Most naturalists now concede that type specimens constitute the most 

 important material in a museum of natural history. The true apprecia- 

 tion of this fact, however, has become general only very recently, as 

 shown in the numerous lately published catalogues of types possessed by 

 different museums. Nearly all of these publications have appeared in 

 America and England. This just valuation of type material in recent 

 years has come about through the work of specialists in their efforts to 

 monograph groups of organisms. In those branches of biology where 

 original descriptions are usually accompanied by figures the value of 

 type material is not so apparent as where no illustrations are given. It 

 is, however, upon the type material that the entities of natural, history 

 rest. Therefore it is of the greatest importance to learn the whereabouts 

 of types. 



There is considerable diversity of opinion as to what is meant by a 

 type. Professor Marsh a writes: 



A type in Paleontology should consist of the remains of a single individual, and 

 this should stand as the original representative of the name given. A second speci- 

 men, or even more, may be used later to supplement the first, but not to supplant it. 

 This, however, has been done by some authors, with the natural result of causing 

 endless confusion in the nomenclature. 



Oldfield Thomas 6 states: 



The word "type" itself when first introduced was meant to refer to the particular 

 specimen (in the singular) originally described, but it soon was naturally applied to 



a American Journal Science, VI, 1898, p. 402. 6 Proc. Zool. Soc. for 1893, p. 241. 



