Se ee ee 
Dr. J. E. Gray on the Genus Cuscus. 245 
Marsupials that have as yet been submitted to a kind of domesti- 
eation ; though I have never been able to see why Kangaroos might 
not have been domesticated by the Australian emigrant, except from 
the difficulty of making them adopt new ways even in a new country. 
I may observe that | believe the British Museum contains the 
largest and finest collection of specimens of this genus that has 
ever been brought together. A few years ago we considered our- 
selves fortunate in having two specimens; now we have thirty-three 
from very different localities, and I have besides these examined about 
half as many more. 
The zoologists of the modern school are very desirous that the 
name of the original namer of the species should always be inserted 
after the specific name, to show to whom belongs the honour of 
having first named the species,—often a very doubtful source of con- 
gratulation or proof of scientific attainment, as for example in this 
nus, 
Should the various coloured varieties really be proved to be good 
species in this genus, we shall have to adopt the names of Lesson, an 
author who seems only to have seen a very few specimens, and to 
have applied a name to each of those that he saw, without giving him- 
self the trouble to ascertain what were the characters that separated 
them from the other examples of the genus ; and it is frequently the 
ease, not only with species but with genera, that the man who first 
gives the name to either one or the other often knows less about 
them, and takes less trouble to study the subject, than men who 
have never given a new name to either genus or species. This was 
specially the case with Swainson, who has given the names to many 
genera of shells and birds even on the slightest characters, and with- 
out the least analysis. 
In my former paper I divided the Cusci into two sections, ac- 
cording to the hairyness and prominence of the ears; I will now 
divide them into four sections, according to the form of the skull and 
the number and disposition of the anterior false grinders; and thus 
place at the disposal of the student two means of determining the 
species. 
Sect. I. The nose of the skull short, broad, and rounded. The an- 
terior conical false grinders one on each side, large, and nearly filling 
up the short diastema. The grinders large, in an arched series, con- 
verging behind. The forehead of the skull rather swollen over the 
front, and depressed between the hinder part of the orbits. Ears 
hidden under the fur. Fur of one colour. Evucuscus. 
1. Cuscus (E.) urstnus, Gray, P. Z.S. 1858, p. 103. 
Temm. Monog. t. 1. f. 1, 2, 3 (adult), t.  f. 1-5 (half-grown) 
(skull), t. 4 (skeleton). 
Blackish ; tail and rump dark, like back. 
Hab. Celebes (Temm.). 
The three skulls, of different ages, all show only a narrow linear 
space between the upper edges of the masseter muscles. The fore- 
