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Show 1892.] IN THE LIDTH DE JEUDE COLLECTION. 313 This being all the historical evidence that I have been able to gather about the Seba and Lidth de Jeude collections, I need scarcely say that I shall be most grateful to anyone who may happen to find any pertinent references to either of them and who would give me information thereof. To pass now to the evidence derived from the specimens themselves and their agreements with the Seba's descriptions and figures. In the first volume of Seba's work about 90 Mammalia are figured and described, and 7 in the second. Of these we must eliminate those that were probably among the Paris set (see below), besides a considerable number more which, owing to their size, could not have been preserved in spirit, and such again as Seba states were not in his own collection. This would leave some 70 or 80 for which originals may be sought. Many of these are of animals so rare, even to the present day, that their independent possession both by Seba and Lidth de Jeude would itself be unlikely ; and still more unlikely that the specimens belonging to the latter should have been able so closely to match the figures given by the former, in age, size, and above all in sex, a point on which Seba was fortunately very careful to give particulars. Of the cases put forward in the following list, some few depend of course merely on an ordinary specific resemblance, and one can only say that there is no disqualifying point, such as wrong sex or age; but in others, and indeed in the majority, there is a strong imdividual resemblance between the figure and the specimen, often confirmed by some collateral evidence extracted from Seba's descriptions. Such cases as those of the Opossums with their varying numbers of mammae visible or in use, of the Lutra brasiliensis with its wrinkled sides, and of the pair of Tamias with the right sexes and number of stripes respectively, are far beyond anything that one could possibly suppose might be due merely to accidental coincidence. In the table now exhibited (pp. 314-15) the first column gives the number of the plate and figure in Seba, the second the name of the species, and the third the British Museum register-number of the specimen I assign to the figure. These specimens will of course always be open to the inspection and comparison of anyone interested in the subject. It is unfortunate that, before the history of the collection was suspected, many of the specimens were taken out for examination and rebottled in modern bottles, but in all cases the fact of their having actually come from the Lidth de Jeude collection is beyond question. Without such taking out, however, exact specific determination is occasionally very difficult, and some animals are therefore inserted in the table merely under their generic names, as without very special reason it would not be right to unseal the ancient and interesting bottles which contain them. |