REVISION OF THE PUMAS 59I 



olympus given by me in 1S97. He quotes Rafinesque's original de- 

 scription as follows: " i. Var. Oregonensis. Dark brown, nearly 

 black on the back, belly white ; body 6 feet long, 3 high, tail 2 or 3 

 feet long. A large and ferocious animal of the mountains. Is it not 

 a peculiar species? Felix oregonensis.^^ 



Rafinesque knew nothing of the animal he attempted to describe. 

 He had never seen a specimen, nor had he ever been within two thou- 

 sand miles of the northwest coast country. Furthermore, his brief de- 

 scription is grossly incorrect, as the animal is not " nearly black on 

 the back," and its belly is not white. In this, as in numerous other 

 cases, his information was obtained from travelers at second or third 

 hand. Who now-a-days would think of proposing or accepting a 

 modern name based on hearsay accounts of travelers and not even ac- 

 companied by the mention of a definite locality ? 



In cases where the description of an old author leaves no room for 

 doubt as to the species meant, or where a modern author adopts or re- 

 defines an old name, as I have sometimes done myself, its status is of 

 course fixed and not subject to change. But the deliberate displacement 

 of a name based on a definite type specimen from a stated locality and 

 accompanied by an adequate description, in order to replace it by an 

 older name of exceedingly dubious applicability and unaccompanied 

 by either definite locality or adequate description, involves, in my 

 judgment, a fallacious interpretation of our principles of nomenclature. 



In the case in point, Mr. Stone candidly admits that "no definite 

 locality is given under the description of F. oregonensis^" and it is 

 only by implication that the name can be attributed to the Oregon 

 country. In this connection it should be borne in mind that Oregon 

 in those days embraced not only the present states of Oregon and 

 Washington, but also Idaho, the western part of Montana, and much 

 of British Columbia. In the same paper Rafinesque names another 

 species, Felis macroura, said to be not larger than a cat, "with tail 

 as long as the body, which is from one to two feet long only." Even 

 Mr. Stone admits that " the source of this information is unreliable 

 and the probability is that no such animal existed " ! 



In the introductory paragraph of his paper Rafinesque says (also 

 quoted by Mr. Stone) : "In addition to the article on our Couguars, 

 page 19 [in which 5 varieties are characterized from Carolina, Green 

 Mountains, Kentucky, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania] , I have to 

 state that several other varieties of tygers are found in the western 

 wilds of the Oregon mountains, or east and west of them, which de- 

 serve to be noticed. I find in my notes that two other varieties of 



