224 PITHECHIR MELANURUS. 



ters above the level of the sea ; the people were felling a tree , 

 in a hollow branch of which the animal had its nest , made 

 from moss and wherein it apparently had been sleeping and 

 so we get it by chance." In an enumeration of the collected 

 animals 1. c. the named author (Dr. S. Muller) called the species 

 Pithee/nr melanurus. — Our second specimen is from Sumatra 

 and was likewise collected by S. Muller. Although I always 

 and again and again have fixed the attention of officers , col- 

 lectors and travellers upon the animal in question and 

 often supported their memory by colored drawings, nobody 

 has been happy enough to procure nor even to observe it. 



Professor Schlegel twice mentioned the species, viz. : in 

 » Handleiding tot de beoefening der Dierkunde, 1857, T. I, 

 p. 70", where he said that it is an animal from Java 

 and Deccan, and in »De Dierentuin, 1872, p. 77", with 

 the localities Java and Hindostan. 



Mr. Paul Gervais (Histoire naturelle des Mammifères, 

 1854, T. I, p. 275) gives a very bad reproduction of Cuvier's 

 fine colored plate, calls the genus »P^Y/^e6'/^g^VMs Cuvier" and 

 the species » Pithecheirus melanurus Cuvier" (Cuvier has not 

 given a latin or greek title to our animal before the year 1 842 

 (table générale, p. 4), when he called the species Pithecheir 

 melanurus^ but Dr. S. Muller, see antea) and remarks: »a en 

 juger par la figure due a Duvaucel , le Pithecheir me semble 

 avoir bien plus d'analogie avec les Ptilocerqms qu' avec 

 les Rongeurs , mais je ne puis donner a I'appui de ce rap- 

 prochement aucune observation precise, n'ayant observe le 

 Pithecheir dans aucun des Musées que j'ai visites." If Mr, 

 Gervais had paid a » visite" to the Leyden Museum before 

 making such an improbable hypothesis, he would have 

 seen two specimens of the species in question ! 



Professor J. van der Hoeven wrote a short paper con- 

 cerning our animal, in 1859, » Verslagen en Mededeelingen 

 der Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen , deel 9, p. 

 50", translated in Annals and Magazine of natural history, 

 1859, Vol. Ill, p. 470. Prof, van der Hoeven mentions 

 both specimens in our collection and made the following 



^otes from tlie Leyden JMuseuxu, Vol. !XII. 



