22 



of the young Gorilla and Chimpanzee bears closer resem- 

 blance to the adult than to the infantile human cranium. 



In Prof. Wyrnan's library, bound up with a quarto copy 

 of the Memoir by Dr. Savage and himself, is a terse but 

 complete history of this subject, in his neat and clear hand- 

 writing, and with copies of the letters of Dr. Savage, Prof. 

 Owen, Mr. Walker, and M. du Chaillu. 



In the introductory part of the Memoir, Prof. Wyman 

 states that "the specific name, Gorilla, has been adopted, 

 a term used by Hanno in describing the wild men found on 

 the coast of Africa, probably one of the species of the 

 Orang." The name, Troglodytes Gorilla, is no doubt to be 

 cited as of Savage and Wyman, and it was happily chosen 

 by Prof. Wyman, after consultation with his friend, the late 

 Dr. A. A. Gould, for the reason just stated. But it is inter- 

 esting to see, in the correspondence before me, how strenu- 

 ously each of the joint authors deferred to the other the 

 honor of nomenclature. Dr. Savage from first to last insists, 

 in repeated and emphatic terms, that the scientific name 

 shall be given by Dr. Wyman as the scientific describer, and 

 that he could not himself honestly appropriate it. Prof. 

 Wyman, in his mss. account, after mentioning what his por- 

 tion of the Memoir was, and that " the determination of the 

 differential characters on which the establishment of the 

 species rests was prepared by me," briefly and characteris- 

 tically adds: "In view of this last ftict, Dr. Savage thought, 

 as will be seen in letter, that the species should stand in my 

 name ; but this I declined." 



This Memoir was read before this Society on the 18th of 

 August, 1847, and was published before the close of the year. 

 But it had not, as it appears, come to Prof. Owen's knowl- 



