244 FOSSA FOSSA. 



coramencer ses voyages qu'en 1768 or la lettre de Poivre 

 a Buffon est bien anterieur et date du 19 Juillet 1761. 

 C'est en revenant de son second voyage aux ties Philip- 

 pines et a Timor, et après avoir hiverne a Madagascar en 

 1755, que Poivre a du rapporter en France et donner au 

 Jardin du Roi la peau bourrée de la Fossane qui a servi 

 de type a Buffon. Vers 1766 ou 1767 Poivre fat nomme 

 Intendant general des iles de France et de Bourbon, et 

 quitta ce poste en 1773. Ce n'est qu'entre ces deux dates 

 seulement que Poivre a été en rapport avec Sonnerat et 

 Commerson. Je suis done persuade qu'il y a eu meprise 

 de la part d'E. Geoffroy St. Hilaire.» 



Therefore we may feel sure that E. G. St. Hilaire ex- 

 hibited in his Catalogue really the type-specimen described 

 by Buffon and that that specimen at that date (1803) 

 really was existing in the collection of the » Muséum na- 

 tional". Afterwards however it has disappeared without 

 a trace: sothat Gray said in 1872 (P. Z. S. L. p. 869) 

 that he had searched for that type-specimen two or three 

 times when he had been in Paris without being able to 

 discover it; he fears the original specimen has been lost. 

 He considers the rediscovery of the animal quite as im- 

 portant as the finding of a new species. 



In the Leyden Museum collection there is a specimen 

 of Fossa fossa collected by Audebert, another from Cross- 

 ley's voyages and a third very old looking specimen of a 

 bleached coloring and labeled, 1885 du Musée de Paris. 

 I thought this specimen to be perhaps the lost type- 

 specimen of la Fossane Buffon ; it at first seemed an im- 

 possibility to make this beyond doubt. In the skin how- 

 ever is an extremely fine cast of the anterior part of a 

 skull, showing the teeth and molars all very clearly. I 

 recollected that de Buffon (see above) said in his original 

 description that the jaws where with the skin. So I 

 thought the cast might have been taken from the original 

 jaws and perhaps these jaws might be as yet preserved 



Notes from tlie Leyden IMuseum, Vol. XX. 



