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Show 634 MR. W. T. BLANFORD ON THE [Dec. 6, notice, for it is scarcely likely that the first syllable in Cingalese wants the n that occurs in Telugu, Canarese, &c. In this case the Cingalese name furnishes the original Mungutia of Kaempfer. I cannot find any similar word in Malay. Horsfield * gives Garangan for II. javanicus, and Cantor2 Musang turon for H. brachyurus. Musang is the term usod for Paradoxurus, whence the specific, name musanga was derived. I conclude that the name mungo or mungos was derived from the Common Mungoose of India, H. griseus of many modern writers, and that this was the animal indicated by Gmelin and others as Viverra mungo, by Geoffroy as Ichneumon mungo, and, as I shall show, by F. Cuvier as Herpestes mungos. If, however, the specific name mungo be rejected, what is the next in priority 1 This, 1 think, must be Herpestes frederici, Desmarest3, which, like H. malaccensis, Fischer4, was applied to the animal figured and described by F. Cuvier as La Mangouste in the well-known ' Histoire Naturelle des Mammiferes.' Desmarest's name was given in honour of Frederic Cuvier. The specimen figured was believed (probably erroneously5) to have come originally from Malacca, and was referred to in an article on another species as the " Mangouste de Malacca." It is true that Blyth, Jerdon, and some other writers have classed this under Fischer's name as distinct from their H. griseus, the Common Indian Mungoose, the latter being less rufous than the former ; but I quite agree with Dr. Anderson in classing the rufous and grey forms together6. Now comes the important point already referred to. F. Cuvier in his article distinguised the animal which, following Buffon, he called " La Mangouste " from the Ichneumon griseus of Geoffroy-, the nems of Buffon, and in the " Table generate et me'thodique " to the whole work he assigned to La Mangouste the Latin name of Herpestes mungos. It appears to me that from Gmelin to Frederic Cuvier or even later7 the specific name mungo or mungos was understood to apply to the Common Indian Mungoose, and that this specific name should be restored instead of the term griseus, which was never intended for the animal and was not, so far as T can ascertain, applied to it before 1830, one of the first authors who used the name being Sykes in 1831. I quite admit the justice of Mr. Thomas's argument that Gmelin's name was applied to the Viverra 1 Res. Java. 2 J. A. S. B. xv. p. 243. 3 Diet. Sc. Nat. xxix. p. 60 (1823). 4 Synopsis M a m m . p. 164 (1829). 6 In this case, and also in that of the specimen obtained by Cantor in the Malay Peninsula (J. A. S. B. xv. p. 242), it is, I think, most likely that the animals had originally been taken from India. 6 I also unite the Sind form described by myself as H. ferrugincus (P. Z. S. 1874, p. 661, pl. lxxxi.) and Mr. Murray's H. atkinsoni (Vert. Zool. Sind, p. 34). In the same manner I regard //. smithi and H. jerdoni {H. monticolus, Jerdon) as rufous and grey varieties of the same specific form. 7 In the late Sir W . Elliot's excellent list of Southern Mahratta mammals published in 1839 (Madr. Journ. Lit. Sci. x. p. 102). |