62 Allen Generic Names of the Mephitince. 



possible, by due restriction, the names bestowed by the fathers 

 of zoology upon composite species. 



But to return to the case of Catesby's Putorius americanus 

 striatus. Mr. Howell says: "The question is simply, could it 

 have been based on anything else [than Spilogale]?" This ques- 

 tion I have already answered in the negative by saying it 'must 

 have been based, to take the most charitable view of the case, 

 on a confused recollection of the little spotted skunk and the 

 common skunk;" or, as Mr. Howell quite as well puts it, on 

 "his recollection of an animal seen afield, perhaps at some dis- 

 tance, and probably in the dusk of twilight-" Is this a legiti- 

 mate basis for the overturning of two properly founded and 

 long-accepted genera, and for the introduction of correspond- 

 ing changes in the names of some forty to fifty species and sub- 

 species? Really the drawing, taken all in all, quite as well fits 

 the common skunk as the spotted skunk; five white stripes, 

 some of them running from the nose to the base of the tail and 

 one of them continued over the basal third of the tail, do not 

 very strongly suggest four white stripes limited to the front 

 half of the body, succeeded on the posterior half by a series of 

 interrupted transverse white stripes, nor does the very long 

 broad wholly black tail (except for the basal stripe) suggest the 

 long white tail tip of either skunk. But why should we par- 

 ticularize when there is scarcely a color marking on Catesby's 

 animal that is like any marking on any known skunk. Its be- 

 ing a black animal with longitudinal white stripes is all there is 

 about it that suggests any form of skunk. If the ground color 

 had not been described as black, and the figure had been labelled 

 Striped Ground Squirrel, it could quite as well have been ac- 

 cepted as a Tamias as a Spilogale or a Mephitis. 



Here is certainly a case for the application of Canon XLIV 

 of the A. O. U. Code of Nomenclature, which reads: "In de- 

 termining the pertinence of a description or figure on which a 

 genus, species, or subspecies may respectively rest, the consid- 

 eration of pertinency is to be restricted to the species scientifi- 

 cally known at the time of the publication of the description 

 or figure in question, or to contemporaneous literature." In 

 the present case, of course, the description or name in question 

 is Linnaeus's Viverra putorius. And at this late day when the 



