I 



On the Specific Names of certain Primates. 017 



LXIX. — On the Specific Names of certain Primates. 

 By AxcjicL Cahukha, C.M.Z.S. 



Almost every authoi- wlio l»ji« alliided to tlie ^rey, reJ-venk-d 

 Cercopilhecun from South Al'ricTl seems to have been in douht 

 as to whether the name pt/i/eri/thruSf F. Ciiv., or lalawiii, 

 I. Geoffr., should be assigned to it. As a recent instance, 

 Mr. OkUield Thomas indifferently used both of them in his 

 interestini^ aeries of papers on mammals obtained duiin<^ 

 the lludd Ex[)lorati()n*. By adoj)tiiig pi/jert/lhrus in his 

 excellent revision of the genus f, Mr. Pocock seems to settle the 

 question ilefiiiitely ; but I cannot a;^ree with this conclusion. 



Cercopitheciis pi/(jer//(hrus was described and figured by 

 F. Cuvier in the ' llistoirc Naturelle des Maminifiires ' as a 

 green monkey with greenish scrotum, whereas the South- 

 AtVican form is a grey animal and i*s scrotum is blue. 

 J\lr. Pocock bases the selection of Cuvier's name on the 

 argument that the type of piigenjthrus was " recorded from 

 the Cape'' ; but that is a mistake, since I. Geolfroy conclu- 

 sively showed on three ditFerent occasions that its locality 

 was quite unknown f. (Juvier himself, in the original 

 description, does not say a word about the locality of the fyi)e, 

 but only that several specimens of the same species were 

 obtained by Delalande at the Cape. Now, in the zoological 

 part of the ' Voyage sur La Venus/ j). 12, I. GeofFroy rightly 

 explains this statement as follows: — 



^' Dans les immenses collections faites dans I'Afrique 

 australe par Delalande, se trouvaient quelques individus de 

 I'espbce precedemment observee ])ar Thunberg, et avant lui 

 par Levaillant ; mais ces individus etaient tons fort jeunes. 

 Lors de I'arrivee en France des collections de Delalande, 

 M. F. Cuvier crut trouver dans ces jeunes Singes le premier 

 age d'un Cercopitheque qui vivait alors h. la m(jnagerie du 

 ]\luseum, et dont ce savant zoologiste a fait le type de son 

 C. jyygerythrus. C'dtait uno errenr, mais une erreur i\ 

 laquelle il dtait alors difficile d'c.hajiper: les affinites qui 

 existent entre le C. pygcrythrxLs et Tespeee de Levaillant, de 



* r. Z. S. 190"), i. p. -ITm ; 1900, i. p. 100, ii. p. 780 ; 1907, p. 770 ; 1908, 

 p. 537. 



t P. Z. S. 1907, p. 735. 



\ ' Dictionnaire universol d'Histoire Naturelle,' iii. (184i2) p. .'iOo ; 

 * Arcliivt;* du Museum d'ilist. Nut. ii. (184l') p. 78; ' Voyiiyo iiulour du 

 Moiule sur la I'regato La V^iiua : Zoulogie,' 1855, pp. 10, 13, 29. 



Aun cf- Mag. N. Hist. Scr. 8. Vol. vi. 41 



