296 SOME OF PROFESSOR MARSH’S CRITICISMS. 
sufficient as to the date of publication. It is indeed not to be ex- 
pected that persons will generally remember the exact dates at 
which printed matter has been received. Nevertheless in a few 
days after making inquiry I received the following : — 
ar roman O. C. Marsh having stated in the “American Naturalist ” (1873, p. 151), that some 
which they bear, and that “‘at least seven 
of them are anteda ted,” I her eby state that most or all the above were received at my soe 
or by me, at or near the dates printed on them, especially those of the summer months 
JAMES ORTON, Professor of Natural History in Vassar College, POUGHKEEPSIE, XN. Y. 
hiria S. LIPPINCOBT, CORNING, New York. 
COX, State Geologist, INDIANAPOLIS, In pre 
aa M. WHEATLEY, PHÆNIXVILLE, Pen 
ERR, Siate Geologist, n sedi Come 
JOSEPH SAVAGE, LEAVENWORTH, Kansas 
I have also received letters from Principal Dawson of Montreal 
and Professor Mudge of the State Agricultural College, Kansas, 
stating that they received the papers, but did not keep exact ac- 
count of the date of reception. Among many others in the United 
States to whom they were sent, I may mention Prof. Davidson, 
President of the San Francisco Academy Natural Sciences. They 
were also sent to Professors Seeley, Huxley, Gegenbauer, Peters, 
Hyrtl, Du Bocage and others in Europe, and Messrs. Gotch and 
Rijgersma in Australia and the West Indies respectively. 
I also add that they were received at my address at Fort Bridger, 
and mostly forwarded to me promptly after the dates of distri- 
ution. 
The little that interests students in this matter is the dates of , 
publication of the essays in question. The dates of reading are 
of secondary importance and have been abandoned by naturalists 
generally as furnishing basis for nomenclature, so that Prof. 
Marsh’s able criticism of the dates on the cover of the American 
> Philosophical Society’s proceedings for 1872 may be regarded as 
urely antiquarian. The papers in’ question were, in fact, issued 
independently of the society, and almost always in advance of the 
time at which they were read before it. But lest our bibliophile 
again charge me with fraud, let me here correct an error in the 
report of the proceedings of that society for August, 1872, in 
“ Nature” for 1873, p. 335. Here it is stated that my first note 
on the Proboscidians was read on August 16th; I hasten to say 
that this is an error probably derived from the wording of the 
note as published on August 19th, in which it was stated (without 
my knowledge) that ‘“‘ The Secretary announced that he had re- ` 
