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U. 8. P. R. R. EXP. AND SURVEYS ZOOLOGY GENERAL REPORT. 



pbrtionally stouter body. The nose is rather long and acute, the nostrils truly lateral, and 

 only visible from the side. The feet are much as in the common M. chinga. The tail vertebras 

 are about half the length of the head and body ; the entire tail rather less than these. 



The body is black, with a subquadrate white patch one-half longer than broad on the crown. 

 A crescent encircles the anterior base of the ear. There are four parallel longitudinal stripes 

 on the body ; two narrow ones starting at the occiput, separated by an interval of half an inch, 

 and two others, one on either side, .broader and confluent with the lower edge of the crescent of 

 the face, extending along the middle of the sides ; another stripe on each side begins on the 

 side of the belly, behind the axillae. These six stripes are continuous to beyond the middle of 

 the body ; they are then interrupted, to reappear in a series of four spots or blotches, these 

 opposite each other, sometimes confluent so as to form transverse bands of white on the flanks, 

 especially the anterior ones, into which the lowest lateral stripes run. The hairs of the tail are 

 entirely black, except the terminal tuft of much longer hairs, which are, throughout, white, 

 and appear to occupy the terminal half of the tail. 



A skull of, probably, this species, from California, indicates a larger, specimen than the above. 

 I give the dimensions of this, in connexion with those of two smaller ones from Texas, probably 

 of the same species, and of about the size of that in the skin just described. 



Measurements. 



The question as to the proper name of this species is somewhat difficult to settle. Two species 

 are described in Lichtenstein's Monograph, in the Berlin Transactions, quoted above : one, the 

 reproduction of the M. interrupta, of Rafinesque, based on a specimen in the Berlin Museum, 

 said to have been brought by Koch from the upper Missouri ; the other, the M. zorilla, (n. s.,) 

 referred to the zorille of Buffon, Hist. Nat. XIII, 1765, tab. xli, brought from New California 

 by Deppe. I can scarcely realize any difference between the two beyond the smaller size and a 

 white tuft in the tail of the latter, which, however, is probably caducous, as in the common 

 species. The Texas animal might readily have been found in Louisiana, as quoted by Rafinesque. 

 I do not feel sure, however, that the description of Rafinesque, like most of his species, is not a 

 mere figment of his imagination, especially in the discrepancy between it and the subject of 

 Lichtenstein's article. 



The Mephitis tricolor of Gray, though rather larger than Lichtenstein's specimen, clearly 

 covers the same ground with M. zorilla, and if identical, will take precedence in point of date. 

 Lichtenstein's name, at any rate, would be inadmissible as previously affixed by Fischer to a 

 South American species. The Mephitis zorilla of Lichtenstein's Darstellungen belongs to the 

 African species. 



For the present, then, or until more material is collected from California and Texas, it will be 

 well to hold Rafinesque's name in abeyance and to adopt that of Gray. Should the smaller 



