390 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



was too small to be regarded as identical with the chinchilla, 

 and himself proposed a new genus Eriomys and named the 

 animal Eriomys chinchilla. However, in the year previous 

 Bennett had already described the animal anew from specimens 

 and given it the name Chinchilla lanigera, thus creating for it 

 a special genus. Molina's name, Mus laniger, is now regarded 

 as pertaining to a small, long-haired mouse, Abrocoma, so that 

 Bennett's new name is not invalidated and becomes the correct 

 term for the chinchilla. His account was based, he says, on 

 two animals brought back to England by Surgeon Collie, 

 who accompanied Captain Beechey on his exploring voyage 

 around Cape Horn to the northwest coast of North America in 

 1825-28. On the voyage out their vessel stopped at Concep- 

 cion and Valparaiso, Chile, but on the return put in for a few 

 days at Coquimbo, a short distance to the north of these ports. 

 Here evidently were obtained two chinchillas, one of which 

 survived the voyage and reached England alive, while the 

 other died and was preserved as a skin and skull to serve later 

 as the basis of Bennett's description. In the later account by 

 Waterhouse (1848) this specimen is mentioned as in the British 

 Museum. The living specimen seems to have been presented 

 by Surgeon Collie to Lady Kriighton, who in turn gave it to the 

 London Zoological Gardens, where it lived "for some time" 

 and was "said to be from Coquimbo." It was perhaps the 

 skeleton and internal anatomy of this individual that were 

 described by Yarrell and Bennett. It seems clear that what- 

 ever Molina's M us laniger was it could not have been a true 

 chinchilla and that the first tenable name for the latter was 

 applied to the animals brought back by Collie from Coquimbo. 



This is a stocky, short-limbed rodent, with a head and body 

 about 9 inches long, and a well-haired, somewhat tufted tail 

 about 5 inches long to the end of the vertebrae, beyond which 

 the tuft projects about two inches. The ears are broad, about 

 two-thirds the length of the head, prominent and oval. The 

 fur, about an inch in length and extremely soft, is a beautiful 

 gray strongly mottled with dusky or black above, passing into 

 an "impure yello w- white " below. Feet dull white. Tail 

 along the middle line above and below, as well as its tuft, 

 black, with the sides dull white. Length of cranium about 2.5 

 inches. 



From time immemorial the thick fur of a delicate buffy-gray 



