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Mr. Bennett on the Chinchillide. 49] 
Art. LXV. Notice of some recent Publications on the 
Chinchilide. By E. T. Brennerr, Esg., F.L.S., 
Sec. Z.S. 
In June 1832, I brought under the notice of the Zoological Society 
an animal then living at the Gardens in the Regent’s Park, and forming 
the type of a new genus, nearly related to Chinchilla, which I proposed 
to call Lagotis Cuviert. The death of the specimen, in the spring of 
1833, enabled me to complete its characters, which were laid before 
the Society at its first Meeting in May of that year (together with a revision 
of the interesting little family of Rodentia of which it forms a part), and 
published immediately afterwards in the Society’s ‘* Proceedings,’’ and 
in the course of August in its *‘ Transactions,” In this paper I regarded 
the family of Chinchillide as consisting of three genera, Lagotis, Chin- 
chilla, and Lagostomus, each composed of a single known species; 
with the addition of the Callomys aureus of M. Isidore Geoffroy St. 
Hilaire, an animal of somewhat doubtful position, characterized only 
from the inspection of imperfect and mutilated skins. 
In the moath of March, 1833, Dr. F. J. F. Meyen, a naturalist 
previously distinguished for his researches in vegetable anatomy, trans- 
mitted to the Imperial Academy Nature Curiosorum, the second part 
of a series of zoological observations made during a voyage round the 
world, containing a revision of the same family, for which he adopts 
from Wiegmann the name of Lagostomi, and to which he refers six 
genera, viz. Pedetes, Lagostomus, Eriomys, Chinchilla, Galex, and 
Lagidium: of Lagostomus he enumerates three distinct species. From 
these views, (which were published towards the end of 1833 in the 
“ Nova Acta Academie Cesaree Nature Curiosorum,” tom. 16, pars 
post., p. 574), my own appear to differ so widely that it may be requisite 
to offer some explanation of the little coincidence that is to be found 
between our several papers. For this purpose I shall follow the order 
observed in Dr. Meyen’s Memoir, remarking on the discrepancies as I 
proceed. 
