CORRESPONDENCE 
107 
LOCALITY, DATE, AND NAME WITH OBSERVATIONS 
To the Editor, Journal of Mammalogy: 
Your Journal is certainly a godsend in affording us restless ones a place to 
post our views and to learn those of others. You have been generous to me in 
giving me so much space for my observations, will you allow me a few lines to 
state some grievances, or at least to point out some wrong methods that have 
caused a great deal of unnecessary annoyance and loss. 
1st. Observations given without place or date. I have before me a note on 
three Mink by a leading naturalist, but no date. If it was spring, it was highly 
significant — if it was autumn, it meant nothing. 
2nd. Dating with numbers for months. Some use the logical sequence — day, 
month, year. Some, alas! including our Post Office ojQficials use it “month, day, 
year.’' I have before me a specimen from a leading museum with the field label 
on it marked 8/4/98 and the museum label 4/8/98. Which is it? Can’t we 
use Roman numerals for the month, or the established abbreviations, and end 
such muddles? 
3rd. I have before me an adventure with a Lynx, by “Mr.” Mackenzie of 
Labrador. If it was Peter Mackenzie, it is valuable. If any of the 75 other 
Mackenzies it is interesting, but doubtful. If by Nicodemus or Ananias Macken- 
zie, it is waste paper. I would never use “Mr.” in such connection. It generally 
means that the recorder did not think it worth following up. Of course, “Dr.” 
or “Miss” or “Mrs.” are all right for they have identification force, but not “Mr.” 
If Sir John Richardson had talked of “Thomas Hutchins” instead of “Mr. 
Hutchins,” it would have saved a world of trouble and prevented the injustice 
that robbed Hutchins of the credit of his great work. 
4th. Citation, without mention of source. I have before me some observa- 
tions on the jump of a Mexican Squirrel, quoted, without mention of source, 
by a modern writer. If the source was one well known Mexican traveller it is 
of the highest value, if by another that I have in mind, it should be scrapped. 
Yours sincerely, 
Ernest Thompson Seton. 
Greenwich, Conn., 
20 December, 1919. 
