
          Wms. Coll. Nov. 7th 1825.

My Dear Sir,

I wrote you the other day in answer to the
charge about the Caricog. I thought I owed it to you
as well as to myself to reply tho' I did not do it till
after serious reflection. Yet after my letter had gone,
I could not but regret I had said half so much, & that
I did not waive my right to answer by a mere statement
of my convictions being unchanged, leaving it
for time to make the changes in yours which I have not
the least doubt will ultimately take place. Besides,
you & I ought to have higher aims than in carrying
on a dispute which will do no good & we can not be
unwilling to give the credit due to each. I feel now indeed
as if you must remove the charges as entirely new grounds
to elicit from me a long reply.

In looking over your Monograph, I see that Mr. Elliott
& myself may not even be mentioned in the history
of Conicog. Now, I think that Mr. Elliott, at least,
has done quite as much as Mr. Nuttall on Conices, yet
the latter has a place while the former is excluded, & only
in poor company in the preface to the Man. Mr. N.
has at least quoted several species, no one has yet found.
I question too whether "within the last year, Prof. D's Caricog.
of the N. States has appeared in Sill. Jour". Some of it
has appeared but I hope all has not [?] had not
when that [sentence?] went to press. It seems to me that a
reader would infer that little had been done by me, no
figs. given, & far too little accomplished for you to make
the charge I have answered. Yet all this is of little consequence,
for I have no doubt that the Caricog. will be known as
well as it deserves & more than I expected. And I have no suspicion
that you meant to say any thing which would not be at
all against it. And certainly I was most glad to find that you 
had not "praised me to the skies" as you threatened for this
daubing I can not well endure & you, as I know
dislike it not a little.

But these are not the
        