MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 183 



served, are very slight, anil pertain to the most variable parts of the 

 animal. Some of them I feel sure are but individual differences, de- 

 pending mainly, especially those in respect to the form of the tail, on age 

 or season. In respect to the black annuli, hardly two specimens can be 

 found that do not vary more or less. In the large series of New Eng- 

 land specimens in the Museum of Comparative Zoology, the variation be- 

 tween the extremes in this respect covers the whole range of the differences 

 assumed to distinguish the two supposed species. The single authentic 

 specimen of P. Hernandezii, labelled apparently by Professor Baird himself, 

 that I have seen* is not appreciably different in general color from many 

 Massachusetts specimens. The supposed differences, it seems to me, are 

 hence reduced to the single one of absolute size, which a large number of 

 specimens of the so-called P. Hernandezii, from different localities, might 

 very considerably modify. From a comparison of authorities, as will be 

 seen from the remarks that follow, this seems to be indeed the fact. The 

 example of P. Hernandt zii above referred to (No. 07, Smithsonian Cat. I, 

 from Bodega, California, is actually smaller than the average of New Eng- 

 land specimens. 



Professor Baird remarks that some of the characters of P. Hernandt :ii 

 given by Wagler and Wiegmann, as the prevailing color of the back and 

 sides differed from specimens he referred to it ; in other words, they were, 

 more like his P. lotor. St. Ililaire, in the Zoology of the Voyage of 

 the Venus, f also described and figured a specimen from Mazatlan that 

 varied similaily from P. Hernandezii Baird, it being smaller and colored 

 more like P. lotor. Under Proci/on Hernandezii var. mexicana, Baird 

 describes a single skin brought by the Boundary Commissioners from 

 Espia, Sonora, that he says agrees with St. Hilaire's Mazntlan speci- 

 men (already referred to), which St. Ililaire considered to differ in noth- 

 ing but in intensity of color from the common P. lotor. Professor Baird 

 remarks that this Espia specimen exhibits a close relationship to P. lotor, 

 though readily distinguishable from it. he claim*, by its " larger and more 

 naked feet and hands." These specimens, in resembling P. lotor more than 

 some others from the same region referred to P. Hernandezii, show still 

 more fully the inconstancy of some of the characters on which the latter is 

 founded. In habits the two supposed species have not been found to 

 differ. J Hence, unless the more southern J', cancrivorus occurs in Cali- 



* Contained in the Museum of the Boston Society of Natural History, and received 

 from the Smithsonian Institution. 



t Vol. I, 1855, p. 25, pi. VI. 



I Professor Baird observes: " According to Dr. Berlandicr, the habits of tin- cp 

 [/'. Ilernamlezii] are precisely similar to those of the common raccoon." Dr. C !'. 

 Fiennerly's notes are al-o of the same purport. — Report on the '.' ftlie Uniud 



s and Mexican Boundary Survey, p. 22. 



