Allen Generic Names of the Mephitince. 61 



perhaps at some distance, and probably in the dusk of even- 

 ing;" which is equivalent to my statement that the drawing 

 was made off-hand from a confused recollection of the two 

 animals. Thus far Mr. Howell's opinion and estimate of the 

 value of Catesby's description and figure are in perfect agree- 

 ment with my own. But he assumes, nevertheless, that both 

 "unquestionably" relate to Spilogale, and on this assumption, as 

 already said, his contention and conclusions solely rest; while 

 I claim that they represent nothing in nature and that any 

 names based on them by later systematists have no standing in 

 nomenclature and should be treated as though they had no ex- 

 istence. This leaves Cuvier's genus Mephitis, as originally con- 

 stituted, a monotypic group, unless we admit Kalm's descrip- 

 tion of his Pennsylvania skunk as affording a basis for a second 

 species, in which case the two species admitted by Cuvier are 

 strictly congeneric, the genus containing no element of Spilogale 

 or Conepatus, and hence is not open to restriction. 



Mr. Howell has made a most welcome and valuable contribu- 

 tion to the controversy by illustrating his paper with a reduced 

 copy of Catesby's figure, and giving with it, on the same plate 

 for comparison, illustrations of typical examples of Mephitis 

 and Spilogale from the region in question. Catesby's animal, 

 with five long, narrow, white stripes running the entire length 

 of the body and one of them continued far down on the tail, 

 and its otherwise wholly black tail, as long as the body, broad, 

 bushy, and without a white tip, and the two light stripes on 

 the head, is sufficiently in contrast with either form of the 

 skunk to warrant both Mr. HowelPs and my own statement 

 that it is essentially a figment of Catesby's imagination or a 

 fabrication based on a treacherous memory. It was deserving 

 of serious consideration only in the early days of zoology, dur- 

 ing the middle and latter part of the eighteenth century, when 

 traveller's tales and the crude observations of unscientific writ- 

 ers formed the basis, in lieu of specimens, of so many of the 

 'species' of the early systematists. Their work, done in good 

 faith and with the laudable intent of systematizing the supposed 

 natural history information of that day, proves a most perplex- 

 ing legacy to modern zoologists, who have the task of separat- 

 ing fiction and error from the truth, and of saving, wherever 



