v.-Lvt:iti'>ri i- — • -ti ; 1 .u -~ -:•. itl\ A i;i-k :i . -., that there is no reason to 

 doubt that they will thrive on the eastern side of Bering Strait. 

 The reindeer is useful as a draught animal for sleds, as well as for its 



Capt. M. A. Healey, of the revenue cutter Bear, has reported to the 

 Treasury Department, emphasizing the proposition as the most 

 important question now before the Territory of Alaska. The recent 

 destruction of seals and sea lions has certainly had its effect upon the 

 food supply question of the country and islands in the neighborhood 

 of Bering Strait, and any distress brought about by the destruction 

 of seals may be alleviated by the introduction of the reindeer. In 

 Iceland, where the reindeer was first introduced in 1870, it ha? 

 increased greatly in number but is said to have relapsed into wild- 

 ness and is now of little use to the inhabitants. It is to be hoped that 

 better fortune will attend their introduction in Alaska, and that they 

 will be treated as domestic animals, and not share the fate of the 

 buffalo. (Scientific American, Oct. 31, 1891). 



Nomenclature of Mammalian Molar Cusps.— In October 

 1888 I sent to the Naturalist a table of nomenclature for the cusps 

 of the molar teeth of Mammalia based upon the rise of these cusps 

 from the single cone of the reptilian tooth as observed by Prof. Cope 

 and myself. These terms have since been adopted by Cope, Scott, 

 Lydekker, Flower, Schlosser and in part by Riitimeyer. They have 

 not, so far as I know, been adopted by any of the palaeontologists of 

 France. Fleischmann, of Erlangen, has opposed their adoption upon 

 the ground that Cope and myself have mistaken the homologies of 

 these cusps in the upper and lower teeth; I have been carefully over 

 this paper and find that every point raised by Fleischmann S 

 erroneous. This author and Doderlein have adopted Greek symbols 

 for the cusps. 



Subsequently I have proposed to extend the nomenclature to the 

 crests of the upper and lower molars in the Ungulate. 1 In thlS 

 paper, as Lydekker has very courteously pointed out, I urn 

 confused "crochet" and " antieroehef " ,,f Husk, and did not rightly 

 interpret Huxley's « pillars." The latest contribution to terminology 

 is Prof. Scott's, which is based upon the law that where the premolars 



'Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., Vol. XX, No. 3, Nov. 1890, p. 88. 



