112 Mr. A. G. Butler on the Genus Gonyleptes. 



fragments of fossil bones, but who when he attempted to name 

 recent skulls, as of crocodiles (of which he has perfect specimens 

 under his eyes), named, described, and published what are now 

 regarded as three distinct species in one case, and two distinct 

 species in another, under the same name, and, on the other 

 hand, a series of skulls of the same species under three different 

 names (see Trans. Zooh Soc. vi. 1869, p. 127), and Avho mixes 

 up together under one name the skulls of two such large and 

 distinct animals as a one-horned and a two-horned rhinoceros 

 as a double-horned one (see Proc. Zool. Soc. 1867, p. 1015). I 

 need not (but could) refer to many more instances of the same 

 kind. I anr in the habit of estimating, from what is written 

 about what I know, the reliance I may place upon what is 

 written of what I do not know, and have thus lost my confidence 

 in this author's writings on zoological questions. 



It is an old complaint that persons will write about what they 

 have a limited knowledge of. Thus the comparative anatomists 

 are always giving their opinions on the limits and definitions 

 of genera and the names that ought to be used — subjects not 

 much in tlieir Avay, and on which they have very crude ideas. 

 What would they say if a zoologist interfered with their ana- 

 tomical details, their confused nomenclature of bones, and tlieir 

 much controverted homologies ? But it is the more remarkable, 

 when we consider how very few animals have been dissected, 

 and how imperfectly those that have been dissected have been 

 described, as is proved by their own papers (see for instance jMr. 

 Clark's paper on the hippopotamus, 'Proc. Zool. Soc' 1872, 

 p. 185), that an anatomist should leave his subject and diverge 

 to write upon the synonyma of species and the priority of names, 

 all of which is mere compilation on his part. 



XIV. — A ]\Ionofiraphic List of the Species of the Genus Gony- 

 leptes, loith Descriptions of three remarkable new Species. 

 By Arthur Gardiner Butler, F.L.S., F.Z.S.,&c. 



[Plate III.] 



Family Gonyleptidae, Wood. 



Genus Gonyleptes *, Kirby. 



1. Gonyleptes horridus. 



Gonyleptes horridns, Kii-bv, Trans. Linn. Soc. xii. p. 452, pi. 22. fig. 16 



(1818). 

 Gom/leptes curcipcs ?, Koch (nee Guerin), Arachn. vii. pi. 224. fig. 555 



(18.39). 

 iiTa??. "Brazil" (A7/'5y); Surinam. One example. B.M. 



* I take this genus in its restricted sense, as used by Gervais ('Apteres,' 

 iii. pp. 102-105). Wood, in his recent papers on Gonyleptidae and Pha- 

 langidse, applies it equally to Goniosoma and Cosmetus ! 



