494 Mr. Bennett on the Chinchillide. 
learned zoologist’s ‘* Darstellung neuer oder wenig bekannter Sauge- 
thiere;”? a work unknown to me at the period when my paper was 
published. The figure there given so closely resembles the true Chinchilla 
lanigera in all its prominent features, that I should not have hesitated to 
refer it to that animal, had it not been accompanied by separate repre- 
sentations of the feet, which offer only four toes on the anterior and 
three on the posterior extremities; and had not the almost proverbial 
accuracy of the distinguished authour rendered it difficult to doubt the 
correctness of his observations in the text, referring with scrupulous 
particularity to this very point. As a synonym, however, Dr. Meyen 
quotes the Callomys laniaer of M.M. Isid. Geoffroy St. Hilaire and 
D’Orbigny fils; and in this case there can be little doubt that those 
excellent zoologists overlooked the small and almost rudimental inner toe 
both of the fore and hind feet; the identity of this animal with the 
Chinchilla lanigera of Dr. Rousseau being unquestioned by the Parisian 
zoologists, who have ample opportunities of comparing them, and M. 
Geoffroy himself having subsequently admitted the generic distinction 
of the Chinchilla (his Callomys laniger) from his genus Callomys 
(the true Lagostomus.) 
The Chinchilla of Mr. Gray, which forms the fourth genus enumerated 
by Dr. Meyen as belonging to this family, is beyond all question the . 
only Chinchilla yet noticed by English zoologists, and consequently 
identical with that figured in Mr. Griffith’s edition of Cuvier’s ‘‘ Animal 
Kingdom,”’ as well as with the Chinchilla of my paper; and I see no 
reason for doubting that the Eriomys of M. Vander Heeven, the fifth 
genus enumerated in Dr. Meyen’s list, is founded on the same species : 
there is nothing in the character that is not strictly applicable to it. 
His sixth genus, Galex, is established on a skull found at the entrance 
of a burrow belonging in all probability to a yet undescribed species of 
the family of Chinchillide ; asthe characters of the animal inhabiting 
the burrow, which was seen only at a distance, appear closely to re- 
semble those of a true Chinchilla. The skull and teeth, however, 
according to the figures given by our authour, belong to a very different 
family, that of the Caviide ; with none of the known genera of which 
