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Show 632 MR. W. T. BLANFORD ON THE [DeC. 6, Anderson in rejecting the name griseus, not, however, merely because it included an African species, which might not under all circumstances have been a sufficient reason, but because it was, I think, proposed for an African species, and not for the Indian Mungoose at all. In a note to his paper on the Mammals of Mr. Hume's collection (P. Z.S. 1886, p. 56, note), Mr. Oldfield Thomas gives reasons for coming to conclusions opposed to my own. He identifies the Indian Mungoose with Ichneumon griseus of Geoffroy, and rejects Gmelin's specific name, which, as I will show presently, appears to me applicable. To explain these views some details are necessary. The original description of Ichneumon griseus by Geoffroy St.- Hilaire occurs in the Natural History of the ' Description Generale de l'Egypte,' vol. ii. pp. 138, 139, and runs thus l :- " Une autre espece, egalement des Indes Orientales, est la man-gouste nems de Buffon, Supp. iii. pl. 27. Elle est d'un cinquieme plus grande que l'espece a bandes 2, sa queue se termine de meme en pointe, son pelage est plus claire, d'une couleur uniforme, tant sur le dos que sur les pattes, ses petits traits d'un brun roussatre dissemines egalement, et dont il y a autant que de poils, font voir en gris-roux la teinte totale qui est, au fond, jaune couleur de paille. Daubenton a connu cette mangouste et l'a decrite dans la premiere partie de son article LI. N. G. tome xiii." This description will apply equally well to several distinct kinds of Herpestes. It will be seen that the species is founded on the Mangouste nems of Buffon. Now this is distinctly said by Buffon to be from Africa. As the term East Indies (Indes Orientales) was until recently very vaguely used and included all countries east of the Cape of Good Hope, East Africa may have been the locality meant hy Geoffroy. There is nothing, so far as I can see, in the description to distinguish either the nems or Geoffroy's Ichneumon griseus from a young Herpestes galera or possibly H. pulverulentus. Mr. O. Thomas, in his paper on the African Mungooses (P. Z. S. 1882, p. 72), refers Viverra nems, Kerr (An. Kingdom, p. 160), to H. galera. Now Kerr's name was clearly founded upon Buffon's description, the characters assigned being abridged from Buffon's account; and if Viverra nems, Kerr, be the same as Herpestes galera, so is Ichneumon griseus, Geoffroy. Moreover, as the two names were founded on the same description, the oldest name has under any circumstances priority over griseus, which must therefore be relegated to the list of synonyms, whatever be the species to which it ought to belong. But there is another and more important fact to be considered. The paper by Geoffroy on the Egyptian Ichneumon, from which the description of I. griseus has just been quoted, contains a list with notes of the species known to the author. The first of these is the " mangouste de VInde ou la mangouste cl bandes," of which it is remarked, " Elle porte aux Indes le nom de Mungo ou de Mungutia, 1 I give the extract in full, as the work is rare. 2 The head and body of which are said to be 25 centimetres long. |