LASIOPYGA 337 



The Simla sthiops Linn., has been a stumbling block, as it were, 

 to Mammalogists always, and by most writers has been considered to 

 belong to the genus Cercocebus, and has usually been bestowed upon 

 the species named by Buff on, "Mangabey a collier blanc," Latinized by 

 Gray as Cercocebus collaris. Mr. de Winton in Anderson's Zoology 

 of Egypt, decided that all previous determinations were wrong, that 

 Linnaeus' species was a Lasiopyga and gave the name of cethiops Linn., 

 to the species afterwards named by Desmarest (L.) griseoviridis. 

 In deciding that the Sintia cethiops Linn., was a Lasiopyga and not a 

 Cercocebus Mr. de Winton may possibly be right, but there is more 

 than a considerable doubt that the species was the griseoviridis of 

 Desmarest, for I am not prepared to follow Mr. de Winton when he 

 says that, "every word" of Linnaeus' description "agrees perfectly with 

 the Monkey under notice," L. griseoviridis (Desm.), for we find the 

 unanswerable statement to the contrary, when in his diagnosis Lin- 

 naeus gives " Cauda tecta, subtus ferrugineus," which certainly does not 

 agree with that member of L. griseoviridis (Desm.), which has 

 no red anywhere on the tail above or beneath. It is most probable as in 

 many other instances Linnaeus never saw the animal he named cethiops, 

 and he merely copied Hasselquist's description in an abbreviated form, 

 and knew nothing of the animal itself. Hasselquist says he saw the 

 animal alive brought into -Ethiopia, (Egypt), by the negroes, but what 

 the species was it is impossible now to determine, for there is no 

 species of Lasiopyga with any red on the under parts of its tail, to 

 be found near enough to have probably been brought by natives to 

 Cairo 150 years ago. The nearest known to-day are members of the 

 PYGERYTHRA Style in Uganda and farther south. The species found 

 in the Soudan is L. griseoviridis and it would be natural to suppose 

 that natives might carry individuals of that form down the Nile to 

 Cairo, but unfortunately it does not agree with either Hasselquist's 

 or Linnaeus' descriptions, and as there is no known species that does, 

 the wisest course is to reject cethiops Linn., as undeterminable, and 

 thus save all future Mammalogists, from the vain attempt to solve 

 a problem that is now beyond human eiTort, and from the use of a 

 name that can only produce confusion and futile argument. 



Lasiopyga CYNOSURA (Scopoli), 



Simia cynosurus Scop., Delic. Faun. Flor. Insubr., I, 1786, p. 44, 



pi. XIX. 

 Malbrouck F. Cuv., Hist. Nat. Mamm., Livr. lime, 1819, pi. 

 Cercopithecus cynosurus Desm., Mamm., 1820, p. 60; Less., 



