MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 181 



same litter. Most of these pseudo-varieties and others of a similar charac- 

 ter have been described by authors as distinct species. Prince Maximilian 

 in his latest work * still maintained the existence of two species, .1/. 

 mesomelas Licht and M. chinga Tiedem., in the United States. The latter 

 (M. chinga) he seems to have known only from imperfect skins brought by 

 the Indians of the Upper Missouri from, as he presumed, the Red River 

 of the North and the Saskatchewan. They were used by them as trap- 

 pings for the legs, and were all very white, differing only in this respect 

 from the common skunk. As specimens similarly colored occur more 

 or less frequently throughout the United States, it seems more probable 

 that the Indians may have selected skins of this color for the special use 

 to which we are informed they applied them than that the skunks of any 

 given region are generally so colored. 



"Without going into the synonymy of the subject in detail, I may add 

 that for the common North American species Dr. Gray strangely adopts the 

 specific name of varians (M. variant Gray, 1837), this name being super- 

 seded in priority by both chinga of Tiedemann (1808) and americana of 

 Sabine (1823), as well by mephitica of Shaw (Vivera mephitica, 1792). 

 This latter being the one first given, has very properly been adopted by 

 Professor Baird. 



trasmas. 



14. Procyon lotor Stork.! Raccoon. Formerly numerous, 



whole of the back had another white stripe four inches in breadth; its tail was also 

 white. The female had no white stripe on the forehead, but had a longitudinal stripe 

 on each side of the back, and a very narrow one on the dorsal line; the tail was wholly 

 black. The young differed very widely in color; we could not find two exactly alike: 

 some were in part of the color of the male, others were more like the female, whilst the 

 largest proportion were intermediate in their marking-, and some seemed to resemble 

 neither parent. We recollect one that had not a white hair except the tip of the tail 

 and a minute dorsal line." — Audubon and Bachman, Quadrupeds, Vol. I, p. 319. See 

 also the two young figured by these authors (Plate 42). one of which has wdiite stripe* 

 on the back and a black tail, and the other no stripes and the end of the tail white, 

 though both were of the same litter. I have myself met with similar variation in the 

 same litter of young. 



* Verzeichniss Xordamerikanischer Sau<;ethiere, Avchiv fur Xaturg., XVII, 2, p. 218. 

 t Ursus lotor Lixx.kus, Syst. Nat., 1, 175S, 48, lb., I, 1766, 70. 

 Procyon lotor Stork, Bod. Meth. Anim., 1780. 



" Hemandezii Wagler, Isis, XXIV, 1831, 514. 



" " Baird, N. Am. Main., 1857, 212. 



" " Is., U. S. & Mex. Bound. Surv., II, Mam., 1859, 22. 



" " var. mexicana Baird, lb., 22. 



" lotor, var. mcxirann St. HiL.viKE,Voyage de la Venus, Zobl., I, 1855, 25, pi. VI. 



" nivea Ghay, Charlesw. Mag. Xat. Hist., I, 1837, 580. 



" psora Ib., Ann. & Mag. Xat. Hist., X, 1842, 261. 



