Miscellaneous. 499 



the paper (of M. tlu Challlu) , with some details, under the name of 

 Cynogale velox, quite sufficiently, especially when one has the type 

 specimen to confirm the description, to establish the specific name 

 of velox." Although this may appear, at first sight, a contradiction of 

 the previous passage, it is not so in reality, as in the first Dr. Gray 

 argues on the assumption of the possible loss of the type specimen, 

 and in the second this specimen is admitted as an essential item in 

 the consideration of the matter. If the description, with the addition 

 of the type specimen, be sufficient to establish the fact that the ani- 

 mal is swift, and therefore to justify the specific velox, that descrip- 

 tion with the type specimen was alike sufficient to establish the fact 

 that it was a river-animal, and therefore to justify the generic 



Potamogale ; for if a mys be admitted as a generic name for 



a carnivorous animal, a gale cannot be rejected for a suspected 



Rodent. Dr. Gray draws a line of distinction between the part of 

 Du Chaillu's description referring to the species and that referring 

 to the genus. I need not quote the passage again in which Du 

 Chaillu justifies his proposal of the genus Potamogale : however 

 unfortunate his comparison with Cynogale may have been, it im- 

 plied at least that it w^as a carnivorous mammal ; and he appealed to 

 the shape and proportion of the tail and its West-African habitat. 

 Surely many a generic name proposed and adopted by naturalists 

 has been introduced into the system with less accurate elements of a 

 generic diagnosis ! Look, on the other hand, at his detailed descrip- 

 tion of the species Cynogale velox : it contains all those errors 

 pointed out by Dr. Gray ; nay, it is even perfectly insufficient as a 

 specific description, such descriptions requiring considerable detail to 

 ensure the distinction of a species from its congeners. If the type 

 specimen had been lost, a succeeding naturalist, who might have re- 

 cognized the genus Potamogale, would still have been at a loss to 

 know whether he had to deal with the same species or not. And 

 yet, although the chances of a recognition would have been more in 

 favour of the generic than of the specific name. Dr. Gray prefers 

 to use his advantage of having the type specimen for confirming the 

 description and name of the species, rather than that of the genus. 

 It was for these reasons that I stated my opinion that if one name 

 be adopted, the other cannot be rejected ; and for these same reasons 

 I now state that the generic name has (on the merits of the original 

 description alone) a better right to be adopted than the specific. 



If zoologists should ever unite in the proposed revision of the 

 " rules of zoological nomenclature," I shall not regret having been 

 forced to this discussion, which may induce them to give a share of 

 their attention to cases like the present. 



