Dr. J. E. Gray on Ateles Bartlettii c^c. 19 



being required. He has given the " temporary denomination " 

 of Canis lateralis to a jackal which is evidently the Cants 

 adiista of Sundevall ; he is even doubtful of this case himself, 

 but fears tliat li§ may lose the opportunity of naming a species. 

 Again, if the monkey is really Ateles variegatus of Natterer, 

 why did not Dr. Sclater make the requisite correction when 

 I described and figured it in the ' Proceedings ' of the Society 

 in 1867? especially as he says it was described, in 1842, in a 

 " most ordinary book of reference." 



Secondly. I have done "wrong because, having received the 

 specimen of Ateles^ which agrees in all respects Avitli the spe- 

 cimen described as A. Bartlettii^ except in being white where 

 that species was yellow, I did not name it as a new species, 

 but, jfinding that one specimen was a male and the other a 

 female, I was willing to believe that they were sexes of the 

 same species, or at least to wait to consider it otherwise until 

 more specimens were submitted to my examination. Dr. 

 Sclater says that it is not like the female at Vienna, and 

 therefore it is not a female of A. Bartlettii. Even if it is not, 

 may it not be a variety of that sex ? At any rate, I am not 

 willing to give another name, which Dr. Sclater is perfectly 

 at liberty to do if he thinks it necessary. 



This rage for giving names to doubtful species is the great 

 bane of what is called zoology, and is destroying the scientific 

 part of the study, reducing it to mere names instead of know- 

 ledge of the things, and is liable to all manner of abuses. 

 Thus one of the royal princes brought home a deer from 

 that general entrepot Singapore, and presented it to the Gar- 

 dens ; and Dr. Sclater, in great haste (not even waiting until 

 the horns had been properly developed), has briefly de- 

 scribed and named it Cervus Alfredi, in a genus already 

 overloaded with nominal species. A shell-dealer has a large 

 number of specimens of Cones, evidently the young of much 

 larger species, which have not yet arrived at their proper form 

 or colouring, which are not saleable, and describes them and 

 other abnormal specimens of common shells as new species, 

 thus rendering them valuable in the eyes of some collectors, 

 as being the types of species described in the ' Proceedings of 

 the Zoological Society,' they conceiving that the Society 

 thereby gives authority to the assertion of their being new 

 species. 



Some day, and I hope soon, such species must be erased 

 from our lists, which they now uselessly encumber, or they 

 will render the science unworthy of the name 



Dr. Sclater objects that in my short notice of the species I 

 simply say " received " by the British Museum. As a Fellow 



2* 



