New Genus of Mammalia calltd Hydromls. 323 



son; and it would then have been more perfectly known, 

 had that respectable and indefatigable naturalist lived loner 

 enough to publish the immense materials with which he 

 enriched natural history. There was i'ound, indeed, ainonn- 

 Commerson's papers, a drawing of this singular animal re- 

 duced only to half its size : he had been indebted for it to 

 *' M. Bougainville de Nerville, governor of the Malouine 

 Islands, an enlightened amateur of natural history." Thes.i 

 are the words of the note which our respectable correspon- 

 dent put at the bottom of the drawing which had been given 

 to him. The name myopotamus loiiariensis, v.hich he pro- 

 visionally gave to this species, proves that he then consi- 

 dered it as the type of a new genus. 



I have not employed the same denomination as Com- 

 nierson. It appeared to me more proper to prefer that of 

 hydromls, composed nearly of the same radicals, because it 

 presents the same termination as the names already em- 

 ployed to denote the most of the analogous srenera, such as 

 those of pteromis, phascoloviis, lagovils, cheirotnis, &c. 

 _ We long neglected the drawing of the myopotamns, 

 either because, not having been executed by Comraersoa 

 himself, it did not inspire us with sufficient confidence, or 

 because our mistrust was authorized by the difficulty of 

 comprehending it in the genera already established. 



It was only after examming the rich collection of furs of 

 M. Bechem*, where I found a considerable quantity of the 

 skins of an animal which appeared to me to be unkiiown Jo 

 naturalists, that I recollected the drawing of Conuiierson. 

 M. Bechem informed me that these skins had been intro- 

 duced into commerce about nine or ten years before; that 

 they were transmitted by the way of Spain ; that he never 

 received fewer than a thousand at a time; and that in some 

 years the number amcnmted to fifteen or twenty thousand- 

 M. Bechem fimml that they hatl an affinity to the beaver 

 skins, and could be applied to the same purposes : he sold 

 them under the denomination of racuonda, which he derived 

 from that of racoon, the name given by the Eno-lish to an 

 animal of North America. They are sought for in com- 

 incrce, ajid are employed in particular bv the manufacturers 

 of hats. 'I'hus our arts were supplied with, and a part of 

 our dress was formed of, the hair of an aninjal with which 

 \ve were unacquainted, and which, however, was sufficiently 

 different from others of the same genus to deserve to be 

 classed in a small particular tribe. 



li was so humiliating a condition for science to be thus 



• A fur-mci-chant of P.iiJs. 



outstripped 



