FOSSA FOSSA. 247 



colors however is exactly like de Buffou described them : iu 

 our female specimen are the dark back-liues more or less 

 broken into very close spots, especially those along the 

 sides of the body. In the adult male there are on each 

 side the uppermost line entire, the following one entire 

 for more than its anterior half, for the rest they are 

 broken into spots like in the type-specimen. I don't see 

 the use of reproducing de Euffon's good description. I 

 solely have to add that the four feet are five-fingered, 

 that the innermost finger is very short and rather high 

 placed, that the claws are well-developed and slightly curved. 



A single word concerning the name » Fossa \ Dr. Pol- 

 len the well known dutch traveller in Madagascar assured 

 in his book «Recherches sur la Fauue de Madagascar et 

 de ses dépendances, 2™^ partie, 1868, p. 14» : V animal 

 qui porte chez les malgaches le nom de Fossa est le Cryp- 

 toprocta ferox de Bennett et non pas la Viverra fossa de 

 Gmelin. Le mot de «Fossa» indiqué pour la premiere fois 

 par Flacourt pour designer un animal de la forme du 

 blaireau a été appliquéé par Bujfon et les naturalistes pos- 

 térieurs, a une espèce de genette originaire de Madagascar. 

 Les malgaches donnent cependant le nom de Sabady aux 

 especes de genettes, tandis quit appliquent constamment le 

 nom de Fossa au Cryptoprocta ferox. In other words 

 Pollen was instructed by the Madagascar-people, that Fossa 

 was the indigenous name for what we now call Crypto- 

 procta ferox, meanwhile they named our Fossa fossa, at 

 once with other Viverridae, always Sabady. Now we 

 cannot make out if Pollen was right, but it remains a 

 fact that de Buffon was quite right also and that he had 

 a good autority for his opinion in Flacourt himself. It is 

 a curious fact that PoUeu seems to have misunderstood 

 what Flacourt tells in his book. The latter verbally stated 

 as follows (Histoire de la grande Isle Madagascar, com- 

 posee par le Sieur de Flacourt, Paris, 16Ö1, p. 152): 

 «Fossa, est un animal semblable au blereau de France, il 



Notes from the Leyden M.u.seu.m., Vol. X.X. 



