External Characters of the Palm- Civet. 161 



spelling of the name was not certainly a misprint, i. e. an 

 overlooked error by the type-setter, is shown by the full 

 title he used, namely, " Le Civette de Hardwich, Viverra 

 hardivichii" Lesson made a mistake in Hardwicke's 

 name — that is all. This raises a nice point for disputation, 

 which it would be profitless to pursue further. 



There remains for settlement, however, the question as to 

 the identity of Viverra hardivickii, Gray. By common con- 

 sent, the species has been regarded as the same as the subject 

 of the present paper, namely, the animal subsequently 

 described by Gray himself as Paradoxurus derbyanus 

 (Charlesworth's Nat. Hist. i. p. 579, 1837), by Jourdan as 

 Hemigale zebre, and by Miiller as Viverra boiei. 



But the type of V. hardivickii, Gray, was a figure of a 

 Malayan animal by Major Farquhar. This figure, said to 

 be in the collection of the Asiatic Society, I have not seen. 

 Gray, however, described the tail as having six or seven 

 blackish rings, the last occupying the terminal fourth of the 

 organ ; the neck as being marked with three small stripes ; 

 and the back with six broader, somewhat lunate bands. 

 Since this description, especially as regards the annulation 

 of the tail, does not agree with the species that currently 

 passes as Hemi'jalus hardivickii, that name is not admissible 

 for it. I therefore adopt derbyanus, setting aside the pro- 

 bability of several subspecies being concerned. It is odd 

 that a refined, if injudicious, " splitter" like Gray ignored 

 in his later works the differences here pointed out. In 

 1869, for example, he made his Paradoxurus derbyanus 

 (Cat. Cam. etc. p. 57) synonymous with his Viverra hard- 

 ivickii-, but the description of the species there printed does 

 not agree with the one he previously gave of V. hardivickii. 

 The type of Paradoxurus derbyanus is in the British Museum, 

 so there is no doubt as to the identity of that form *. 



* This note was written before I hadseen Mr. 0. Thomas's remarks upon 

 this species (Joarn. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. xxiii. no. 4, pp. G12-613, 

 1915). Mr. Thomas adopts the name Hemigalus derbianns, admitting 

 Gray's emendation of the spelling of the specific title. Although the 

 result in this particular instance is of little moment, it should be 

 remembered that the allowance of such an alteration is a precedent 

 dangerous to nominal stability in general. Mr. Thomas, moreover, 

 rejects hardivickii, Gray, on the grounds that hardwichii, Lesson, was a 

 misprint. But my independent arrival at the conclusion that hardwichii 

 cannot on the evidence be dismissed as an obvious misprint, shows that 

 the point is one about which different opinions may be held ; and since 

 Mr. Thomas does not discuss my second reason for rejecting hardwichii — 

 namely, the uncertainty as to the identity of the species so named by 

 Gray in 1830 — I have allowed my notes on the names to stand as originally 

 written, although the conclusion is practically the same as Mr. Thomas's, 



