CUSCUS CELEBENSIS. 105 



cus 1)" said: )^ Cuscus [Strigocuscus) celebensis, Gray. P. Z. S. 

 1858. p. 105. t. 62. 



» Hab. St. Cristoval , Solomon\^ ^) Group of Islands. We 

 »have both sexes in the British Museum Collection, and 

 » the skulls of two others nearly adult , collected by Mr. Ray- 

 »ner and Mr. J. Macgillivray during the voyage of the 

 » Herald". There is very little difference betvs'een the two 

 » skulls though they are from a male and female animal. 



»In the description of the species in the paper above 

 » referred to, the animal is erroneously said, hy a slip of 

 »the pen ^), to have no dorsal streak^). We have in the 

 » British Museum a young specimen of a Cuscus from Ma- 

 »cassar, which is very like C. celebensis^ but it has no 

 » visible dorsal streak'): it is not in a very good condi- 

 » tion. It may be a variety of this species , or the young 

 »of one of the other, or perhaps an undeveloped state of 

 »a new one". 



And in the same paper we read on p. 32 1 : » The other ^) 

 »was sent by Mr. Wallace from Macassar in 1857 and is 

 »a young male. I formerly considered it as a variety of 

 »C. celebensis (P. Z. S. 1858. p. 43^); and it is like that 

 » species in several particulars; but the ivant of the dorsal 

 » streak ^) is a great peculiarity ^) , which was not so dis- 

 ))tinctly seen before it was stuffed." 



Every one will agree with me that, without sufficient 

 materials , it may be called hopeless efforts to find and 

 hold the thread in such a labyrinth of bad descriptions, 

 contradictions and inexactness , mixed with a very acci- 

 dental slip of the pen and crowned with a may be em- 

 bracing all the species imaginable ! 



There are living in Celebes two species of Cuscus, viz: 

 C. ursinus and a species quite distinct from this and from 



1) P. Z. S. L. 1861. p. 319. 



2) I write this in' Italics. 



3) Of two young specimens of the genus which Gray was not able to de- 

 termine with certainty. 



4) Not p. 43 but p. 105. 



Notes from the Leyden JMu.seu.m, "Vol, VII. 



