1869. ] LETTER FROM PROF. J. REINHARDT. 57 
service he was, caused animals to be fetched from many countries 
to keep them alive in the park of his country-seat, Freiburg, near 
Recife (Pernambuco); and that some of these animals had come 
from Africa is so much more probable, as a lively intercourse, called 
forth by the slave-trade, took place between the then Dutch North 
Brazil and the western coast of Africa, where an expedition, sent 
out by the Prince Maurice in the year 1641, had conquered the 
possessions of the Portuguese in Angola. I have still to add that 
if the said Pig had really been a domestic animal generally found in 
Brazil in Marcgrave’s time, it would most probably have also been 
mentioned by the not much older author Gabriel Soares de Souza, 
who has left us a very detailed and, for his time, excellent descrip- 
tion of the condition and appearance of Brazil at the close of the 
sixteenth century. But it is not mentioned at all in his work 
among the domestic animals then kept in that country. As for the 
rest, Dr. Gray is not the first who has supposed Marcgrave’s Sus 
porcus to be not a breed of the common Pig, but a peculiar species, 
and yet a domestic animal in Brazil. Already in Erxleben we find 
the same view; and he does not even hesitate to state that it was 
found there in great numbers even at the time when he wrote (‘ ubi 
hodie copiosissimus,’ Erxleben, Syst. Regni Anim. p. 184). 
*« My other observation relates to Dr. Gray’s notice about Ptero- 
nura sandbachi. He concludes the welcome information about this 
rare Otter with the remark that Natterer’s Lutra solitaria from 
South Brazil (Ypanema, in San Paulo) probably forms a second spe- 
cies of the genus Pferonura. This supposition, however, is scarcely 
well founded ; for in the short original description given by A. Wag- 
ner of this Otter he calls our particular attention to the naked 
muzzle (‘die nackte Nasenkuppe’) as one of the most essential cha- 
racters of this species; whereas the muzzle of Pteronura, as we 
know, is entirely covered with hair. But even though Lutra soli- 
taria, Natt., according to all that we know about it, cannot be a 
Pteronura, yet I consider it not improbable that a species of this 
genus (or, perhaps, rather subgenus) is living in Brazil, to which it 
may be useful to direct the attention of travelling naturalists, though 
it is only very insufficient information I can impart about it. I have 
sometimes in the province of Minas Geraes seen the stretched and 
tanned skins of a large Otter, and also myself brought home such 
a one, which, though the point of the tail is wanting, has never- 
theless the very considerable length of 6 feet. I do not consider 
this mutilated and damaged specimen sufficient for definitively de- 
ciding the question ; but so much may at any rate be stated, that 
this Otter has a muzzle entirely covered with hair, the very narrow 
edges of the nostrils only excepted; and on the tail of the skin we 
see still distinct traces of a lateral ridge (not very prominent, to be 
sure) which has formed the limit between the upper and the under 
side, and which it has been impossible to efface completely, though’ 
the skin has been stretched and tanned. Thus it is at least very 
likely that this skin really belongs to a Pteronura; and as for the 
colour and the spots on the throat, it seems even to agree so well 
