634 MR. W. T. BLANFORD ON THE [DeC. 6, 



notice, for it is scarcely likely that the first syllable in Cingalese 

 wants the n that occurs in Telugu, Canarese, &c. In this case the 

 Cingalese name furnishes the original Mungutia of Kaempfer. 



I cannot find any similar word in Malay. Horsfield ' gives 

 Garangan for 11. javanicus, and Cantor ^ Musang turon for H. 

 brachyurus. Musang is the term used for Paradoxurus, whence the 

 specific name musanga was derived. 



I conclude that the name mungo or mungos was derived from the 

 Common jNIungoose of India, //. griseus of many modern writers, 

 and that this was the animal indicated by Gmelin and others as 

 Viverra mungo, by Geoffroy as Ichneumon mungo, and, as I shall 

 show, by F. Cuvier as Herpestes mungos. 



If, however, the specific name mungo be rejected, what is the next 

 in priority ? This, I think, must be Herpestes frederid, Desmarest^ 

 which, like H. malaccensis, Fischer ^ was applied to the animal 

 figured and described by F. Cuvier as La Mangouste in the well- 

 known ' Histoire Naturelle des Mammiferes.' Desmarest's name 

 was given in honour of Frederic Cuvier. The specimen figured was 

 believed (probably erroneously ') to have come originally from 

 Malacca, and was referred to in an article on another species as the 

 " Mangouste de Malacca." It is true that BIyth, Jerdon, and some 

 other writers have classed this under Fischer's name as distinct 

 from their H. griseus, the Common Indian Mungoose, the latter 

 being less rufous than the former ; but I quite agree with Dr. 

 Anderson in classing the rufous and grey forms together^. Now 

 comes the important point already referred to. F. Cuvier in his 

 article distinguised the animal which, following BufFon, he called 

 " Im Ilangouste" from the Ichneumon griseus of Geoffroy, the nems 

 of Buffon, and in the " Table ge'ne'rale et methodique " to the whole 

 work he assigned to La Mangouste the Latin name of Herpestes 

 mungos. 



It appears to me that from Gmelin to Frederic Cuvier or even 

 later'' the specific name mungo or mungos was understood to apply 

 to the Common Indian Mungoose, and that this specific name 

 should be restored instead of the term griseus, which was never 

 intended for the animal and was not, so far as I can ascertain, 

 applied to it before 1830, one of the first authors who used the 

 name being Sykes in 1831. I quite admit the justice of Mr. 

 Thomas's argument that Gmelin's name was applied to the Viverra 



' Res. Java. 



2 J. A. S. B. XV. p. 243. 



3 Diet. Sc. Nat. sxix. p. 60 (1823). 

 * Synopsis Mamm. p. 164 (1829). 



' In this case, and also in that of the specimen obtained by Cantor in the 

 Malay Peninsula (J. A. S. B. xv. p. 242), it is, I think, most likely that the 

 animals liad originally been taken from India. 



"^ I also unite the Sind form described by myself as H. ferrugineus (P. Z. S. 

 1874, p. 601, pi. Ixxxi.) and Mr. Murray's H. atklnsoni (Vert. Zool. Sind, 

 p. 34). In the same manner I regard //. smithi and H. jerchni {H. monticolus, 

 Jerdon) as rufous and grey varieties of the same specific form. 



' In the late Sir W. Elliot's excellent list of Southern Mahratta mammals 

 published in 1839 (Madr. Journ. Lit. Sci. x. p. 102). 



