CnAP. YI. THE TOTAMOGALE VELOX. 117 



The 28tli of December was a bappy day to me ; 

 for I succeeded in what I had been lono; wishinir for. 

 the acquisition of specimens of tlie curious otter-Hke 

 animal Potamogale velox. It was one of my most 

 interesting discoveries on my former journey, and I 

 had given a description of it which was pubhshed in 

 the ' Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural 

 History for 18G0' (vol. vii. p. 353). I had been 

 unable to bring home more than a skin of this animal ; 

 and when it was made the subject of one of the un- 

 generous attacks made at that time upon me, I was 

 unable to produce evidence, in a skeleton or speci- 

 men of the perfect animal, of the truth of the account 

 I had given of it. I had examined the living animal, 

 and had described it from remembrance as alHed to 

 the otters. But my critic, from an examination of 

 the skin, only ridiculed my statement, and declared 

 that it did not even belong to tlie order under v.'hicli 

 otters are classed, but was a rodent animal. He pro- 

 posed even to do away with the name I had given it, 

 and to call it Mytliomys^ in commemoration of my 

 supposed fabulous statement. It may be imagined, 

 then, how glad I felt in obtaining two specimens of 

 the Potamogale. I preserved the skeletons as well 

 as the skins of both, and wished that I could at once 

 Lave sent them to London to vindicate my statements.* 

 Some weeks afterwards, when at Mayolo, I obtained 

 four more specimens. 



* Independently of my specimens, an cxamjile of the Potamogale velox 

 came into the hands of Professor AUman, of Edinburgli, who was the first 

 to announce that I h id accurately describtd and clas.sified the animal. See 

 Profe.ssur AUman's Memoir iu the 'Transactions of the ZoolOjjical Society,' 

 vol. vi., jit. I., p. 1. 



