r 



VOL. XV PP. 59-66 MARCH 22. 1902 



PROCEEDINGS 



OF THE 



BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON 



A FURTHER NOTE ON THE GENERIC NAMES 

 OF THE MEPHITIN^E. 



BY J. A. ALLEN. 



A few months ago Mr. Arthur H. Howell, in his 'Revision 

 of the Skunks of the Genus Chincha^* proposed to substitute the 

 name Chincha Lesson, 1842, for the group of Skunks which 

 had previously for a century been known as Mephitis Cuvier 

 (1800), and to transfer the name Mephitis to the group which 

 for thirty-six years had been known as Spilogale (Gray, 1865). 

 The basis for this transfer seeming to me invalid, I soon after 

 gave my reasons for this belief in a paper entitled 'The Generic 

 Names of the Mephitinse.'f Mr. Howell, in a recent article 

 entitled 'The Generic Names of North American Skunks, 'J en- 

 deavors to justify his action in regard to the case of Chincha, 

 and also in reference to several minor points respecting which 

 we hold different opinions. Fortunately, or unfortunately, 

 these disputed points nearly all hinge on a wretched plate pub- 

 lished by Catesby in 1731, and an equally inaccurate and vague 



*North American Fauna, No. 20, August 31, 1901. 

 fBull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., XIV, pp. 325-334, Nov. 12, 1901. 

 JProc. Biol. Soc. Washington, XV, pp. 1-9, with a plate, Feb. 18, 1902. 

 12 BIOL. Soc. WASH. VOL. XV, 1902. (59) 



