Mr. Bennett on the Chitichillidtz. 491 



Art. LXV. Notice of some recoit Publications on the 

 ChinchiUidcB. By E. T. Bennett, Esq., F.L.S., 

 Sec. Z.S. 



In June 1832, I brought under the notice of the Zoological Society 

 an animal then living at the Gardens in the Regent's Park, and forming 

 the type of a new genus, nearly related to Chinchilla, which I proposed 

 to call Lagotis Cuvieri. The death of the specimen, in the spring of 

 1833, enabled me to complete its characters, which were laid before 

 the Society at its first Meeting in May of that year (together with a revision 

 of the interesting little family of Rodentia of which it forms a part), and 

 published immediately afterwards in the Society's " Proceedings," and 

 in the course of August in its " Transactions." In this paper I regarded 

 the family of C/itnc/ii7/i(/ffi as consisting of three genera, Lagotis, Chin- 

 chdla, and Lagostomus, each composed of a single known species; 

 with the addition of the Callomys aureus of M. Isidore Geoffroy St. 

 Hilaire, an animal of somewhat doubtful position, characterized only 

 from the inspection of imperfect and mutilated skins. 



In the month of March, 1833, Dr. F. J. F. Meyen, a naturalist 

 previously distinguished for his researches in vegetable anatomy, trans- 

 mitted to the Imperial Academy Naturae Curiosorum, the second part 

 of a series of zoological observations made during a voyage round the 

 world, containing a revision of the same family, for which he adopts 

 from Wiegmann the name of Lagostomi, and to which he refers six 

 genera, viz. Pedeles, Lagostomus, Eriomys, Chinchilla, Galex, and 

 Lagidium: of La^os/omus he enumerates three distinct species. From 

 these views, (which were published towards the end of 1833 in the 

 " Nova Acta Academiae Caesarese Naturae Curiosorum," torn. 16, pars 

 post., p. 574), my own appear to diOer so widely that it may be requisite 

 to offer some explanation of the little coincidence that is to be found 

 between our several papers. For this purpose I shall follow the order 

 observed in Dr. Meyen's Memoir, remarking on the discrepancies as I 

 proceed. 



