218 Mr. Ogilby^s Descriptions of tvm new Kangaroos 



second Number of the ' Annals' contains a favour of another and 

 very different description on the part of Mr. Gray, which I shall now 

 briefly notice. 



On the 28th of last November I exhibited and described at the 

 Zoological Society a new species of Phalanger, from the island of 

 Van Diemen's Land, which I proposed to call Phalangista Viverrina, 

 and which, I observed, was the species figured in Cook's Voyages, 

 and hitherto confounded with the Phalangista Cookii of M. Geoffroy 

 St. Hilaire. I stated moreover that I had been long acquainted with 

 the characters of the animal, and its specific distinction from the real 

 Phalangista Cookii, from a specimen in the British Museum, in which 

 establishment it was confounded with that species, but that I refrained 

 from noticing it, as w r ell from a point of delicacy as because I was 

 unacquainted with its precise habitat. Mr. Gray was present at the 

 meeting in question, and took a very prominent part in the proceedings 

 of the evening. With the exception of one or two mistakes, he has 

 in the last Number of the Annals reproduced the observations which 

 I made on that occasion almost word for word, appropriating them 

 to himself, without any allusion to my communication, and propo- 

 sing a new name of his own (P. Banksii), not for the new species, 

 but for the old Phalangista Cookii, reserving the latter name most 

 improperly for the new species, which had already been named 

 by me Viverrina, avoiding the charge of suppressing my name. 

 Mr. Gray's observations manifestly show that at the time they were 

 written he was not aware that the Van Diemen's Land species was 

 the animal so long possessed by the British Museum, as he regrets 

 that no specimen was sent by Mr. Gunn, and I presume that he had 

 either forgotten this part of my observations or refreshed his memory 

 from the minute book of the Zoological Society, in which a very 

 brief abstract only of them is given : yet I observe that he has since 

 had the label " Hepoona Cookii, Van Diemen's Land," attached to 

 the animal in the collection of the Museum, having, I suppose, be- 

 come acquainted with the characters of the animal from the speci- 

 mens of both species in the Museum of the Zoological Society. This 

 is but a supposition on my part ; but it cannot be far from the truth, 

 as the two species have been exhibited with my names in the Zoo- 

 logical Society's collection ever since the period of my observations, 

 and Mr. Gray's paper plainly shows that he had no original know- 

 ledge of their specific distinction. Mr. Gray is at considerable pains 

 to show that the Van Diemen's Land species, which is the new one, 

 and to which I gave the name of P. Viverrina, should be called 

 P. Cookii, and that the old one which has always passed by that name 



