114 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF [1894. 



ment a crescentine half-riug, clasping tlie superior anterior portion of 

 second ring, the latter being produced forward beneath it. Dorsal 

 disk with six to seven free bands; upper molars, twelve; lower 

 molars, fourteen to sixteen. Type Tatiisia {Iluletia) hybrida 

 (Desm.) Gray. 



The nine-banded Armadillo, Dasypus novemcinctus Linnjieus, Syst. 

 Nat., 1758, 51, has quite generally gone under the specific name 

 peba of Desmarest, (Mamm. 1820, 368), who puts the f<eptemcinctus, 

 odocinctus and novemcinchis of Linnreus, Erxleben and Boddaert 

 among his synonyms, implying that these are composite species and 

 indistinguishable. The use of Desmarest's name j)eba is unwar- 

 ranted, the original Linnsean description and references relating, in 

 the main, unmistakably to the same animal. The first reference to 

 /)e/;« (Seba Mus. I, p. 45, tab. 29, Fig, 1), is. unmistakably the 

 nine- banded species; see also his reference to Marcgrave. 



Dr. Gray (sup. cit. pp. 245, 246), discusses the identity and 

 synonymy of Tatusia hybrida (Desm. ), and names it T. septemcinda 

 after Schreber (SJiugt., 1775, II, 220), who there describes a species 

 which he considers the same as Linneeus' Dasypus of the same name, 

 quoting the Systema Naturte, 12th edition, in which it is the same as 

 in the 10th. In these Linmeus describes a "Dasypus" — " D. 

 cingulis septenis, palmis tetradactylis, '^ * * Habitat in Indiis. " 

 Schreber's description and figure fiurly represent what Dr. Gray 

 chooses to call " Midetia septemcincta," but as this specific name was 

 first applied by Linnaeus to an unrecognizable Armadillo _/ro»i India 

 it is inapplicable to a six-banded Armadillo from South America. 



Desmarest's Dasypus hybridus is the first indisputable name for a 

 short-tailed, six or seven- banded Tatusiah-om tropical America. Dr. 

 Gray's disgust at the barbarous name of hybridus, by which Des- 

 marest probably referred less to the animal's pedigree than to its 

 asinine ears, seems utterly inconsistent with the naming of his new 

 genus. As such, however, it may nominally be allowed to stand, 

 not only as a warning to the future namer of names, but in the in- 

 terests of an overburdened synonymy. 



