1889. ] DIFFERENT SPECIES OF OTTER. 199 
to vary so much in these Otters that at present I feel quite unequal 
to a decision as to whether there are one, two, three, or four Neotro- 
pical species in addition to those already mentioned. Dr. A. Nehring, 
in a recent paper’, has boldly tried to settle the question by lumping 
all these flat-headed medium-sized Brazilian Otters under one heading, 
to which he applies the name of L. latifrons. 
To this I am unable to agree, as some of the Guianan specimens 
before me appear to be certainly specifically distinct from the South- 
Brazilian and from the Central- American specimens, but what names 
will have eventually to be applied to the different forms it is at pre- 
sent impossible to say. Lutra paranensis, Rengg. (1830), L. platen- 
sis, Waterh. (1839), and L. solitaria, Wagn. (1842), appear all to 
refer to the same animal; while for Guianan specimens Lutra 
enhydris and L. insularis, F. Cuv. (1823), will have to be reckoned 
with. 
Otters of the naked-nosed flat-headed type, which we may pro- 
visionally call Z. paranensis, occur in the Straits of Magellan, where 
one was obtained by Dr. Coppinger, in La Plata (Darwin), Paraguay 
(Rengger), Rio Grande do Sul (Hensel, Ihering), Sao Paulo (Nat- 
terer), and in Central America (Salvin, Sumichrast, and others). 
There is also in the Museum a young Otter apparently of this form, 
which was said to have come from Mexico; but its determination is 
rather doubtful, although it is certainly distinct from L. canadensis. 
Still further northwards there seems a possibility that this form 
occurs in Alaska? and onthe Mackenzie River*; and should this be 
the case, Pallas’s ‘* Viverra aterrima” (Schrenck’s Lutra aterrima), 
from the far North-east of Siberia, may also prove to be the present 
widely-scattered species. 
Considering therefore the difficulties of the case, I propose to 
postpone the consideration of these forms of Otter to a future 
occasion, and hope that in the meanwhile collectors will help 
us by obtaining additional material, and also that other authors 
will contribute their quotas towards the attainment of a satisfactory 
solution of the question. 
To sportsmen and naturalists living abroad it may be pointed out 
1 SB. Nat. Freund. Berl. 1887, p. 23. The new name is given on the ground 
that none of the half-dozen older names were given in the broader sense covered 
by Dr. Nehring’s name, a plea that no respecter of nomenclature-rules could admit 
for one moment. ‘To the few zoologists who could suppose such a proceeding 
admissible it may be pointed out that practically every species is originally 
described and named on one form only from a single locality, and that it is 
only afterwards that its variability and geographical range are properly made 
out. Probably Prof. Nehring would protest were some one to find a ‘‘ Ctenomys 
minutus” in Chili, and were to re-name it on the ground that the describer had 
not included the Chilian form ; and yet this is only what Dr. Nehring has himself 
done in trying to supersede Lutra paranensis, Rengg., L. platensis, Waterh., 
L. solitaria, Wagn., and the other names previously given to members of this 
group of Otters. 
2 Cf. Coues, Fur-bearing Animals, p. 301 (1877). 
% A new-born animal, apparently an Otter, collected by Mr. B. R. Ross at 
this locality, and now in the British Museum, is certainly not L. canadensis, 
and may be this species. 
14* 
