202 MR. T. BELL ON THE GENUS GALICTIS. 
under the name of Viverra vittata, which was retained by Gmelin and others ; but the 
semiplantigrade character of the foot seems to have led Thunberg to consider it as 
more nearly allied to the Urside, and he accordingly calls it Ursus Brasiliensis. By 
Desmarest it is arranged in the genus Gulo; and the name Gulo vittatus, given to it 
by this author, has been employed by the Cuviers and all other subsequent writers, with 
the exception of Dr. Traill, who, in the third volume of the Memoirs of the Wernerian 
Society, restores it to its proper family the Mustelide, but under the erroneous name of 
Lutra vittata; for it has no nearer affinity to the otters, than that which is possessed 
by the whole of the species of the genus Mustela. M. Fred. Cuvier has given in his 
great work on the ‘‘ Mammiféres,” an account of an individual which lived in confine- 
ment, whose habits almost exactly agreed with those of mine already alluded to; the 
figure which this naturalist has there given, although the best that has hitherto ap- 
peared, is so faulty that 1 have thought it necessary to offer another, taken from my 
own specimen when living. When the form, the structure, and the habits of this animal 
are considered, it appears strange that all the Zoologists subsequent to Buffon, who 
have hitherto examined it, should have failed to ascertain its real affinities. In the form 
of its body, and particularly in the structure of the teeth, it is absolutely similar to 
many of the genus Mustela, particularly to the ferret and the polecat. This similarity, 
at least in form, was detected both by D’Azara and by Buffon, as is proved by the 
names which they assign to it. Nor is there a single difference of any importance in 
the structure of the teeth, between this animal and the polecat, with the single excep- 
tion, that the inner tubercle of the carnivorous tooth is, in a very slight degree, broader 
in the present species. The character which induced me to consider it as generically 
distinct from Mustela, for there cannot for a moment exist a doubt as to the necessity 
for its removal from Gulo, is the semiplantigrade nature of the feet ; and this appeared 
to be a structural distinction of sufficient importance to warrant such a separation. 
This view has been confirmed in a very interesting manner by the occurrence of the 
new species about to be described, having exactly the same general character of colora- 
tion and markings, but with sufficient essential distinctive characters to point it out as 
specifically different. 
The genus then belongs to the family of the Mustelide, but exhibits in the form of 
the feet a slight indication of an approach to the Urside, in which group it is probably 
represented by the genus Ratellus, which, whilst it shows a similar degree of aberration 
from the type of its family, has an almost identical peculiarity of coloration. It is in 
such circumstances as these, where the animals really possess the more important ana- 
logies of form and of relation to their respective types, that the confirmatory though 
only subordinate analogies of colour are of real value; and it is surely unnecessary to 
point out the difference between relying upon colour and markings, on the one hand, 
as a primary analogical character, irrespective of other and more important relations ; 
and, on the other, considering them as constituting only a collateral corroboration of 
