Scientific Notices. 135 
animals as decided species. The animals, without having been seen by 
the critick, are asserted by him to have long been well known and described. 
And the authours themselves are dismissed with the no very conciliatory 
imputation of having attempted to palm upon the world “ nominal spe- 
cies’? and ‘ pretended novelties.’ 
How far M. Lesson, the avowed writer of this extraordinary comment, 
has made good his assertions may be collected from the following details. 
The first animal referred to by Mr. Vigors and Dr. Horsfield, [Vol. IV, 
p- 107.] was represented by them as having been hitherto considered one 
of the varieties of the Szmia Lar of naturalists, the Homo Lar of Linneus. 
It was declared to accord with some of the previous descriptions of that 
species, and more particularly with some of the best representations 
given of it in plates. They suggested the propriety of separating speci- 
fically this reputed variety, which was strongly marked by the hands and 
feet being white, while the rest of the body was black, from that equally 
strongly marked variety in which the entire animal was of the latter 
colour. In this proposed separation they assumed the entirely black 
variety to be the type of the Linnean species Lar ; and they suggested 
the name of albimana for the white-handed animal, in case of its being 
ascertained to be a distinct species. 
That they had some grounds for making this provisional separation, 
and that in so doing they did not lay themselves open to the imputation 
of wantonly creating nominal species, may be inferred from the fact, that 
a year subsequently to the publication of their suggestions, M. Geoffroy 
St. Hilaire proposed the very same separation between these animals ;** 
reversing, however, the mode of naming them, by assuming the white- 
handed variety as the type of the Linnean Lar, and describing the black- 
handed variety, with a well-meaning and well-merited compliment, under 
the specifick name of Rafflesit. 
In cases of this nature where an original observer first points out the 
specifick difference between reputed varieties of a species, the privilege 
is usually and naturally accorded him of selecting the variety to which 
the old name is to be retained. He of course looks to the description of 
the first imposer of the name, and endeavours to discover which of the 
* Cours de |’Hist, Nat. des Mammiferes, 7me legon, p, 33. 
