BULLETIN 



UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEY 

 OF THE TERRITORIES. 



VOLUME Y. 1879. NUMBER 3. 



Art. XVIII. Oil the Species of the Genus Bassaris.* 



By J. A. Allen. 



The mammals of the genus Bassaris were for a long time a puzzle to 

 the systematists, who, however, generally referred them to the Viverridce, 

 as constituting the only American representatives of the family. Some 

 authors, as Gervais, while believing that they were Viverrine, have seen 

 in them some affinities with the Mustelidce, while others, as Waterhouse 

 and Turner, have hinted at an Ursine alliance, especially to such forms 

 as Procyon and Nasua. Professor Flower,t who has especially investi- 

 gated the affinities of Bassaris, concludes: "On the whole I think 

 there can be little question that evidence has been adduced to prove 

 that Bassaris is a member of the Arctoid sub-division of the Carnivora, 

 and among these approaches most nearly to Procyon and Nasua" (1. c., p. 

 34). Dr. Gill, in 1872, \ assigned it the rank of a family (Bassarididce) 

 of the Arctoidea, and a position at the end of the group, following 

 Procyonidce. 



GENERAL HISTORY. 



Although the Bassarids are of common occurrence throughout Mex- 

 ico, and range also far both to the southward and northward of that 

 country, and were known to Hernandez as early as the middle of the 

 seventeenth century, they escaped the notice of systematic writers till 

 within the last half century. The first modern account of them was pub- 



*The material on which the present paper is based is almost exclusively that of the 

 National Museum, for the free use of which I am indebted to its able director, Prof. 

 Spencer F. Baird. 



t On the Value of the Characters of the Base of the Cranium in the Classification 

 of the Order Carnivora, and on the Systematic Position of Bassaris and other disputed 

 forms. By William Henry Flower, F. R. S., F. Z. S., etc., Conservator of the Museum 

 of the Royal College of Surgeons. Proc. Zool. Soc. Loud., 1889, pp. 4-37. Bassaris is 

 treated at pp. 31-34, which see for a fuller history of the views of systematists respect- 

 ing its affinities. 



t Arrangement of the Families of Mammals, p. 67. 



Bull, v, 3 1 331 



