{ 20k J 
XV. Observations on the Genus Galictis (Bell), with the Description of a new Species. 
By Tuomas Betz, Esq., V.P. Z.S., F.R.S., &c., Prof. Zool. in King’s College. 
Communicated April 25th, 1837. 
IN the year 1826, in offering to the Zoological Club of the Linnean Society’ some 
remarks on a living female Grison which had been for some years in my possession, I 
was led to consider this species as constituting a new generic type, to which I gave the 
name of Galictis, but without then assigning its distinctive generic character. 
The existence, in the museum of the Zoological Society, of a new species, nearly 
allied to the former and yet evidently distinct, has induced me now to enter more par- 
ticularly into the subject, and to lay before the Society, in addition to a description of 
the new species, some observations on the characters and affinities of the genus. 
Buffon, in the third volume of the supplement to his “‘ Histoire Naturelle,” gives 
two figures under the respective names of ‘‘ Fouine de la Guyane” and ‘Grison,” 
which have always been considered as belonging to one animal, the Viverra vittata of 
Schreber. 
The animal which forms the subject of the first-named figure was brought from 
Guiana ; the teeth were wanting, but the general form of the body led Buffon, with his 
usual ignorance of true distinctive character, to consider it as a variety merely of the 
former or Marten. His description as well as the figure is sufficiently clear to designate 
the animal as identical with that which has subsequently been known as the Viverra 
vittata, and could not have appertained to the species which I shall presently describe. 
The second figure above alluded to, accompanied by a description, was first published 
in the fifth volume of the Dutch edition of Buffon, by Allamand, who gave it the name 
of ‘‘Grison,”’ quasi Belette grise. This animal was said to have been brought to M. Al- 
lamand from Surinam. The figure is certainly very different from the former, so as to 
prove that great fault exists in the stuffing of both specimens. The former has an 
extremely attenuated nose with a lengthened body; in the latter the muzzle is thick 
and obtuse and the body less slender. But the colours, if the engraver can be 
trusted, and the character of the hair, are sufficiently different to warrant considerable 
doubt whether this may not be a representation of the same species as that which is 
now introduced to the notice of the Society. It is also the “ petit furet’’ of d’Azara’s 
History of the Quadrupeds of Paraguay. 
Schreber, in his History of Mammalia, placed the former animal amongst the Viverre, 
' Zool. Journ. ii, p. 551. 
