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Show 1869.] LETTER FROM PROF. J. REINHARDT. 57 service he was, caused animals to be fetched from many countries to keep them alive in the park of his country-seat, Freiburg, near Recife (Pernambuco); and that some of these animals had come from Africa is so much more probable, as a lively intercourse, called forth by the slave-trade, took place between the then Dutch North Brazil and the western coast of Africa, where an expedition, sent out by the Prince Maurice in the year 1641, had conquered the possessions of the Portuguese in Angola. I have still to add that if the said Pig had really been a domestic animal generally found in Brazil in Marcgrave's time, it would most probably have also been mentioned by the not much older author Gabriel Soares de Souza, who has left us a very detailed and, for his time, excellent description of the condition and appearance of Brazil at the close of the sixteenth century. But it is not mentioned at all in his work among the domestic animals then kept in that country. As for the rest, Dr. Gray is not the first who has supposed Marcgrave's Sus porcus to be not a breed of the common Pig, but a peculiar species, and yet a domestic animal in Brazil. Already in Erxleben we find the same view; and he does not even hesitate to state that it was found there in great numbers even at the time when he wrote ('ubi hodie copiosissimus,' Erxleben, Syst. Regni Anim. p. 184). " M y other observation relates to Dr. Gray's notice about Ptero-nura sandbachii. H e concludes the welcome information about this rare Otter with the remark that Natterer's Lutra solitaria from South Brazil (Ypanema, in San Paulo) probably forms a second species of the genus Pteronura. This supposition, however, is scarcely well founded ; for in the short original description given by A. Wagner of this Otter he calls our particular attention to the naked muzzle ('die nackte Nasenkuppe') as one of the most essential characters of this species; whereas the muzzle of Pteronura, as we know, is entirely covered with hair. But even though Lutra solitaria, Natt., according to all that we know about it, cannot be a Pteronura, yet I consider it not improbable that a species of this genus (or, perhaps, rather subgenus) is living in Brazil, to which it may be useful to direct the attention of travelling naturalists, though it is only very insufficient information I can impart about it. I have sometimes in the province of Minas Geraes seen the stretched and tanned skins of a large Otter, and also myself brought home such a one, which, though the point of the tail is wanting, has nevertheless the very considerable length of 6 feet. I do not consider this mutilated and damaged specimen sufficient for definitively deciding the question; but so much may at any rate be stated, that this Otter has a muzzle entirely covered with hair, the very narrow edges of the nostrils only excepted; and on the tail of the skin we see still distinct traces of a lateral ridge (not very prominent, to be sure) which has formed the limit between the upper and the under side, and which it has been impossible to efface completely, though the skin has been stretched and tanned. Thus it is at least very likely that this skin really belongs to a Pteronura; and as for the colour and the spots on the throat, it seems even to agree so well |