118 Mr. R. I. Pocock on the Species of 



This new form certainly agrees with the specimen named 

 Mustela striata by E. Geoffroy St. Hilaire in the whiteness 

 of the tail and the presence of five white stripes extending 

 down the back. It also agrees in the whiteness of the tail 

 with the example which I. Geoffroy St. Hilaire identified as 

 striata in 1839, stating that the type of his father's striata 

 was a young individual of a species of which an adult had 

 come into his hands from Madagascar, where it was procured 

 by Goudot (Mag. de Zool. 2nd ser. 1839, pp. 32-33, pi. xviii.). 

 The description he gives is unintelligible. He states that 

 the body has five wide black bands and two others (smaller) 

 on a greyish ground, making seven black stripes in all. But 

 since the dark stripes in Galidietis are almost always sym- 

 metrically paired *, there cannot have been an odd number of 

 them unless there was a median black stripe down the spine. 

 This is not likely, but it is possible. Supposing, however, 

 that it was so, his figure clearly shows that there must have 

 been four black stripes, one of them short, on each side of 

 the middle line, making a total of nine black stripes in all. 

 There is clearly some mistake here. 



From an examination of the plate accompanying Geoffroy's 

 memoir it cannot be doubted, I think, that his animal had 

 four black stripes (three long and one short) on each side of 

 the body, making a total of eight, separated by seven pale 

 interspaces. 



To this pattern four specimens in the British Museum 

 conform. Since two of these are young and two adult, it 

 may be inferred that the difference in the number of stripes 

 is not a question of age. Amongst the broad-striped, white- 

 tailed forms of Galidietis, therefore, two styles of pattern are 

 known, one with six black stripes and five pale interspaces 

 exemplified by G. eaimius, the other with eight black stripes 

 and seven pale interspaces, exemplified by the species which 

 I propose to name and describe as follows : — 



Galidietis ornatus, sp. n. (PI. VII. fig. 2.) 



Resembling G. eximius in the whiteness of the greater 

 part of the tail and other respects, but differing in the 

 following particulars : — The head, the pale areas between the 

 stripes, the legs, and ventral surface decidedly darker. The 



* The type of G. vittata, described below, has a faint short spinal stripe 

 in the middle of the back, and a similar stripe is traceable on the fore 

 part of the neck of G. eximius. 



