50 Bulletin American Museum of Natural History. [Vol. XX, 



Hensel, 123; zygomatic breadth, 78; interorbital breadth, 28; width 

 of braincase, 45; length of upper molar series, 21.5; length of lower 

 molar series, 26; audital bulla, 17 x n; height of sagittal crest, 6. 

 Another specimen, probably male, occipito-nasal length, 146; basal 

 length, 128; zygomatic breadth, 81; interorbital breadth, 31; width 

 of braincase, 47; length of upper molar series, 22.5; length of lower 

 molar series, 25; audital bulla, 17 x 12; height of sagittal crest, 8. 

 Still another specimen, apparently female, occipito-nasal length, 137; 

 basal length, 120; zygomatic breadth, 82; interorbital breadth, 33; 

 width of braincase, 49; length of upper molar series, 22; audital 

 bulla, 1 6 x 12; height of sagittal crest, 5. These skulls, while appar- 

 ently old, with closed sutures and highly developed crests, have the 

 teeth very little worn. 



The Costa Rica and Panama Coatis differ from those of 

 Mexico in their very much darker coloration, and in the 

 greatly increased size and more elongated form of the audital 

 bullae, which are one-fifth longer than in an old male of N. n. 

 molaris from southern Jalisco, and nearly twice the size of 

 those of true N. narica from eastern Mexico. Compared with 

 molaris of equal age and the same sex, the skull is longer and 

 narrower, the zygomatic breadth being 4 mm. less, and the 

 zygomatic arch is much more strongly curved upward; the 

 dental armature is heavier than in Vera Cruz specimens of 

 true narica, but far less developed than in molaris (Fig. n). 

 Two additional specimens from Talamanca, Costa Rica (U. S. 

 Nat. Mus. Nos. ifyfj and Hlf J) agree in cranial characters 

 with the type. 



Apparently Linnaeus based (Syst. Nat., 1766, I, p. 64) his 

 Viverra nasua wholly on Brisson's Le Coati-Mondi (Regne 

 Animal, i, 1756, p. 262), for which Brisson gave no locality, 

 but took his description from a specimen he saw in the pos- 

 session of Mr. Lievre. The species was described by Buffon 

 in 1760 as Le Coati bran, from a specimen he had alive, but he 

 gave no indication of its original source. Linnaeus gave the 

 habitat as "America." 1 There is no doubt, however, that 

 both Brisson's and Buffon's specimens came from eastern 



1 In my paper 'On the Coatis (Genus Nasua, Storr),' published in 1879 (Bull. U. S. 

 Geogr. and Geolog. Surv. Territories, V, No. 2, Sept., 1879, pp. 153-174), I inadver- 

 tently stated (/. c., pp. 162, 166) that Viverra nasua Linn, was based entirely on Buffon, 

 Buffon being a lapsus for Brisson. 



