THE STATE GEOLOGIST. 77 



carry out his arguments to their logical conclusions, and, whether 

 owing to conservatism or other reasons, he often declined taking 

 a novel procedure, preferring to abide instead by precedent and 

 established usage. In the second place, he was sometimes led 

 through caution and hesitancy to doubt his own determinations, 

 instances being not at all uncommon where he has contradicted 

 himself in this respect. 



As has been remarked by Dr. Eaton, "the late Professor New- 

 berry belonged to a school of palaeontologists whose practice it 

 was to decide all doubtful cases in favor of a new species." 

 Examples of this tendency are to be found in his recognizing a 

 distinction between S. fultus and S. macropterus, species which 

 had been previously united by J. H. Redfield. Semionotus lahis 

 was also regarded as a distinct species, although pronounced a 

 synonym of S. tenuiceps by earlier writers, nor are these the 

 only instances that might be cited. Even the identity of Eger- 

 ton's genus "Ischypterus" with Semionotus was more than sus- 

 pected by him, although he appears not to have arrived at a 

 decided conviction on this point. Wherever the former generic 

 term occurs in the present article, it is to be understood as a 

 synonymy of Semionotus, this being the accepted usage. The 

 new species of Semionotus described by Professor Newberry 

 were named by him as follows : 



Semionotus 



a 



("Ischypterus 

 11 



') gigas. 

 robustus. 



it 



it 



micro pterus. 



It 



it 



( lineatus. 

 X alatus. 



ti 



a 



m 



a 



a 



r lenticularis. 



a 



a 



< modestus. 



ti 



a 



1 elegans. 



(C 



a 



minutus. 



Newberry took occasion to observe more than once in his 

 Monograph that his work was liable to modification through the 

 discovery of more and better material, and he predicted that 

 further investigation would probably reduce instead of increase 

 the number of species. The names bracketed together in the 



