Allen, The Generic Names Echi?nys and Loncheres. 



being also based on Allemand. It is thus evident that the spe- 

 cific name chrysurus of Zimmermann has many years' priority over 

 cristatus of Desmarest, both having been founded on Allemand's 

 Lerot a queue doree. (For the pros and cons of this case, 

 see Isidore Geoffrey Saint- Hilaire, /. c., pp. 6 and 7.) It is fur- 

 ther evident that the type of Loncheres is the Echimys cristatus of 

 recent authors, although Lichtenstein in 1820 J attempted to 

 restrict the genus Loncheres to L. paleacea, then for the first time 

 described, he also referring all of the previously described 

 species of Echimys, which he saw fit to recognize, to Lonche- 

 res. His species are (i) Z. paleacea "111.," (2) Z. chrysuros, (3) 

 L. rufa (= E. spinosus Desm.), (4) Z. myosurus, sp. nov. ( E. 

 cayennensis Desm.). Later Lichtenstein strangely referred 2 all 

 of these species except Z. paleacea, to Mus, which he retained as 

 the type and only species of Loncheres. In 1829 Fischer adopted 3 

 Loncheres for the eight species described by Desmarest and the 

 Z. paleacea of Lichtenstein, ignoring Echimys altogether. On 

 the other hand Rengger in 1830 4 adopted Echimys, citing Lonche- 

 res as a synonym of it. The two species he had occasion to 

 mention are the E. spinosus Desm. and E. longicandatus, sp. nov. 

 In 1837, in an extract from an unpublished paper by Jourdan, 

 F. Cuvier & added the genus Nelomys Jourdan, with N. blainvillii, 

 sp. nov., 6 as type. According to F. Cuvier, Jourdan joined with 

 this, under Nelomys, " 1'Echimys huppe" (= E. cristatus of 

 authors), which led Cuvier to remark : " Cette reunion sufrirait 

 pour indiquer les rapports des Nelomys avec les Echimys, 

 1'Echimys huppe etant le type de dernier genre, si, en effet, 

 les Echimys formaient un genre natural." Cuvier comments on 

 the fact that the group of Echimys, consisting of nine or ten 

 species, includes forms that differ much from each other in the 

 structure of the teeth. He also states, as shown above, that he 

 considers 1'Echimys huppe (= E. cristatus Desm.) as the type of 



1 Ueber die Ratten mit platten Stacheln. Von Herrn Lichtenstein. (Vorgelessen den 15 

 Januar 1818.) Abhandl. der Konigl. Akad. der \Vissen. in Berlin, aus den Jahren 1818-1819, 

 pp. 187-196. The volume is dated 1820. 



2 Darstellung neuer oder wenig bekanntei Saugethiere, 1827-1834, pi. xxxv, fig. i, and pi. 

 xxxvi, with the text belonging thereto. 



3 Syn. Mamm., 1829, pp. 306, 307, 588. 



4 Naturg. der. Saeugethiere von Paraguay, 1830, pp. 233-237. 



5 Rapport sur un memoire de M. Jourdan, de Lyon, concernant quelques Mammiferes nou- 

 veaux. Par M. F. Cuvier, Ann. des Sci. Nat., ser. 2, VIII, 1837. Cf. pp. 370, 371. 



6 Described in a footnote to page 371, the description being an inedited extract, in marks of 

 quotation, from Jourdan's paper. 



