134 Scientific Notices. 
Art. XXV._ Scientific Notices. 
Notice respecting some Species of Mammalia referred to by Mr. Viaors 
and Dr. HorsFIExD in the XILIth No. of this Journal. 
Ir is with extreme reluctance that Mr. Vigors and Dr. Horsfield ob- 
trude themselves upon the readers of this Journal, in vindication of a 
Paper inserted by them in a former number, and which has been com- 
mented upon, in a somewhat unusual mode of criticism, by one of the 
writers in the ‘* Bulletin des Sciences Naturelles.”’ 
As the professed object of that work, as far at least as relates to Zoo- 
logy, is to give a succinct account of the various publications in that 
science, as they issue from the press; and as the usual practice adopted 
by the contributors to it is to notice the labours of contemporary authours 
with fidelity, but without note or comment; any deviation from this 
practice at once challenges observation. When such a deviation from 
the beaten track is accompanied on the part of the writer by a total 
misrepresentation of the objects of the work which he undertakes to 
notice, it seems to originate in motives which demand a still closer in- 
quiry. It is this view of the case which has induced Mr. Vigors and Dr. 
Horsfield to refer to the criticisms contained in the “ Bulletin,’’ and thus 
invest them with an importance which belongs neither to the subject 
itself, nor to the writer who has forced them into this contest. 
In the 13th number of this Journal these gentlemen made some obser- 
vations upon four species of Mammalia, contained in the collection of 
the Zoological Society. Of these one alone was considered and described 
by them asa previously unnoticed species. The remaining three were 
spoken of as either having been considered varieties, or the young of 
described species, or likely to be so considered. The fact of their being 
species was held out as problematical, and the attention of naturalists 
was expressly called to the point for the purpose of ascertaining this fact 
by the only actual proof which cases of this nature will admit of. In 
the face, nevertheless, of this explicit statement of their intentions, the 
writers are misrepresented in the “ Bulletin,”’ as having described these 
Pile a 
if oe oe 
