ANIMALS. 5i3 



a bird, divested of its feathois, and walking upon its legs, it might 

 give us some idea of its figure. It has fore feet indeed, but in 

 running, or resting, it never makes use of any but the hinder. 

 The number of legs, however, do not much contribute to any 



skins arc in great esteem for the fineness and softness of the fur," lie evi- 

 dently means the cliindiilla; for no species of squirrel, whose fur is of any 

 value, is found in that country. The same may also be said of an anony- 

 mous Italian author, (considered by some bibliographers, but we believe 

 erroneously, to have been the Abbe Vidaure,) who publishtd at Bologna in 

 1776 a Compendium of the Geographical, Natural, and Civil History of tho 

 Kingdom of Chili. This writer speaks of the Arda, which is the Spanish 

 word for a squirrel, as a species of rat or campagnol, of the size of a cat, 

 found only in the province of Copiapo, moderately docile, and covered with 

 ash-coloured wool, as close and delicate as the finest cotton. 



" 15nt this confusion of species becomes tolerable if compared with another 

 into which the same author has fallen when he speaks of the chinche, the 

 most insupportably offensive of all stinking animals, as having a remarkably 

 soft fur, which is made into coverlets for beds. The responsibility, how- 

 ever, for the latter error must rest with Buffon ; who, alter quoting FeuiU 

 lee's excellent description of that abominable beast, adds : " it appears to 

 nic that the same animal is indicated by Acosta imder the name of chiucliilla, 

 which is not very different from that of chinche." How this great natura- 

 list could have been led to confound two animals so essentially distinct in 

 every particular, of one of which he had a specimen in good preservation, 

 while the skins of the other, mutilated it is true, but still distinctly recog. 

 nisable, might probably ha^e been seen in the warehouse of every fnrrier, 

 we are at a loss to conjecture. The circumstance itself affords a striking 

 proof of the obscurity in which the history of the cliinchilla was then in- 

 volved, when the mere similarity of sound in the names was the solitary 

 argimient advanced in favour of so unfortunate a conjecture. 1 he error 

 was corrected by D'Azara, who is, however, himself mistaken in regarding 

 the chinche of Feuillee and BufTon as his Yagauare, and who adds nothing 

 to what Wiis already known with respect to the true chinchilla. 



" Molina's Essay on the Natural History of Chili was originally published 

 in Italian at Bologna in 1782. In the preface the author candidly confesses 

 that his materials are not sufficiently complete for a general Natural History 

 of the country. Tliey appear indeed to have consisted partly of the recollec 

 tion of a vigorfuis mind, and partly of such imp(<ifect notes as could only be 

 made use of in the way of hints to recall to the memory some of those minor 

 points which might otherwise have escaped it. It is obvious that under such 

 circumstances, however careful the writer may have been to avoid mistakes, 

 it is impossible to place in his descriptions that implicit confidence to which 

 his acknowledged good faith would otherwise entitle him. In this work he de- 

 scribes the chinchilla as a species of the Linnsean genus Mus, under the name 

 of Mus laniger, by which appellation it was received into Gmelin's Edition of 

 the Systema Naturoe, and continued to be kno^vn among naturalists, until M. 

 Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire suggested that it ought rather to be regarded as aspe. 

 C'.es of the genus separated by him from the rats imiler the name of Hamster, 

 This opinion vvas immediately adopted by zoologists, and seems to have been 



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