2 NORTH AMERICAN FAUNA 60. FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 



species on outlying islnnds iil()n<r t)otli iho Atlantic* and the Pacific 

 coasts. Thirty spocics and subspecies ai-e reeognizcHJ. Twenty-nine 

 of these are assigned to the subgenus Procyon and one to the subgcMius 

 Euprocyon. 



The revision is based mainly on a study of raccoon material in the 

 collection of Biological Surveys, Fish and Wildlife Service, and in 

 other collections in the United States National Museum. Tlu'se and 

 358 specimens borrowed from other museums make a total of 1,337 

 examined. The assemblage included the types or topotypes of most 

 of the known species and subspecies. 



For the loan of specimens the writer is especially indebted to Dr. 

 Thomas Barbour, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Cambridge, 

 Mass. ; the late Dr. Joseph Grinnell, Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 

 Berkeley, Calif.; Dr. W. H. Osgood, Chicago Natural History Mu- 

 seum, Chicago, 111.; Dr. H. E. Anthony, American Museum of Natural 

 History, New York City; Dr. R. M. Anderson, National Museum of 

 Canada, Ottawa, Canada; the late Oldfield Thomas of the British 

 Museum (Natural History) ; Francis Kermode, Provincial Museum, 

 Vancouver, British Columbia; Dr. L. R. Dice, Museum of Zoolog.v, 

 University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich.; and the late D. R. Dickey, 

 Pasadena, Calif. Grateful acknowledgment is also due to Percy Shu- 

 feldt. La Cueva, N. Mex., for the generous donation of specimens 

 collected by him in Campeche, Mexico. Notes on his examination of 

 specimens in the British Museum have been kindly furnished by Dr. 

 Remington Kellogg, United States National Museum, -Washington, 

 D. C. Stanley P. Young, Fish and Wildlife Service, Washington, 

 D. C, generously supplied the photograph for the frontispiece. 



Dr. E. W. Nelson became keenly interested in the raccoons, as shown 

 by his work on those inhabiting the Florida Keys (1930a). ^ During 

 the same time and in the following year new subspecies were described 

 jointly by Nelson and the writer in preparation for a revision of the 

 group; but other projects claimed attention and our collaboration 

 could not be carried beyond this preliminary stage. 



HISTORY 



The raccoons represent a highly successful branch of a well-developed 

 phylogcnietic tree. Their ancestry has been traced far back to the 

 genera F/i/aocyon and Cynodictis of the Lower Miocene or Oligocene 

 periods. Early progenitors of these animals probably also gave rise 

 to such divergent modern families as the Canidae, the LTrsidae, and the 

 Mustelidae. For detailed discussion of the phylogenetic relation- 

 ships of the raccoons see the authors listed in the Bibliography (p. 87), 

 especially Wortnian and Matthew (1899, p. 109), Matthew (1930, p. 



■ Publications rcfi'iTcil to |)uiTiithetic;illy by dati' are listed in the Bibliography, pp. S7-10G. 



