588 Bulletin American Museum of Natural History. [Vol. XXIV, 



(Rossmann, Reise nach Guinea, 1708, p. 299), employing for the three 

 collectively (and properly, as these three names all refer to the same species) 

 the name Mustela galera. Schreber adopted the same name at about the 

 same date. (Schreber and Erxleben cite each other; Schreber gave the 

 page reference to Erxleben, but Erxleben cited only Schreber' s plate, which 

 Is copied from Browne's.) They both combined with these "le Tayra ou 

 le Galera" of Buffon (Hist. Nat., XV, 1767, pp. 155, 156), doubtless because 

 Buffon believed that the " Galera" or "Guinea Fox" of Browne might be 

 the same as his "la Belette noir du Bresil," which he says is also found in 

 Guiana, where it is called Tayra; and he further conjectured that the name 

 galera is "un mot corrompu & derive de tayra"; and also suggests that 

 while the animals described by Browne as the Guinea Fox may have been 

 brought to Jamaica from Africa, that they had been first shipped from 

 Brazil to Guinea and thence to Jamaica. Aside from these conjectures, 

 Buffon's "le Tayra ou le Galera" is also Browne's "Guinea Fox." 



Buffon doubtless took his cue from Linnaeus, who in 1758 (Syst. Nat., 

 ed. 10, p. 46) described the Tayra, evidently from personal knowledge of 

 the animal, under the name Mustela barbara, including as his sole reference : 

 "Confer. Brown, jam. 485. 49. f. 1. Galera?" In the 12th edition he 

 again cites Browne, and again with a mark of interrogation. In this way 

 began a confusion which still prevails, as the sequel to this note will show. 



Browne's long Latin diagnosis of Galera contains little that is applicable 

 to the Tayra, but much that well agrees with the Mungoose of East Africa, 

 which his figure, though crude, and evidently not ad nat., strongly suggests. 1 

 Besides, he says: "This creature is often brought to Jamaica from the 

 coasts of Guinea, where it is a native, .... It burrows under ground .... It is 

 of the size of a small rabbit or cat, and very strong in its fore-feet, which 

 are much shorter than the hinder." The Tayra, however, is not a native 

 of Guinea; it is not a fossorial, burrowing animal but is arboreal; it is much 

 larger than a "small rabbit or cat"; its color would not be described as 

 "subfuscus," it being black, with the head gray, and with a prominent white 

 or yellowish spot on the foreneck. 



Browne's Guinea Fox was correctly identified by Pennant, Schreber, 

 Erxleben and other eighteenth century authors with the "Vondsira" of 

 Flacourt (Hist, de la Grande isle Madagascar, 1661, p. 154; later the 

 Vansire of Buffon) who obtained a specimen in that island, doubtless brought 

 there, as well as to Jamaica, from Africa., but whose true home was later 

 found to be the neighboring coast of Africa (cf. Thomas, P. Z. S., 1882, p. 

 154). As noted above, it was first properly introduced into binomial nomen- 



1 The head of the animal appears to have been based on a Didelphis, especially the teeth. 



