AND AFFINITIES OF POTAMOGALE. Bs) 
It is exactly in this position that Mr. Du Chaillu’s name of Potamogale stands: it 
has thus precedence over Gray’s name of Mythomys; and the laws of natural-history 
nomenclature compel us to accept it. The synonomy of Mr. Du Chaillu’s animal will 
accordingly stand as follows :—Potomogale (prov. gen.) velox, Du Chaillu,= Cynogale 
velov, Du Chaillu,= Mythomys velox, Gray (gen.). 
External Characters and Teeth. 
Potamogale velox (Plate I.) is somewhat larger than a stoat; it has very much the 
aspect of a small otter, but is rendered especially striking by its broad, almost spatuli- 
form muzzle and its very large laterally compressed tail. Both fore and hind limbs are 
short and nearly equal to one another in length. The body is clothed with somewhat 
coarse but soft hair, which projects from a shorter dense coat of very fine silky hairs ; 
and the same kind of clothing covers the base of the tail as far as an oblique line which 
terminates below at about an inch behind the vent, and above at about an inch still 
further back; the whole of the rest of the tail is covered with short, coarse, closely 
appressed hairs. ‘The sides of the upper lip give origin to stiff bristle-like whiskers, 
which commence at the point of the nose, and continue to be borne as far back as a 
point nearly vertically over each angle of the mouth, increasing in length and thickness 
from before backwards; the most anterior are short and incline forwards, and they then 
acquire more and more of a backward direction until we find the most posterior 
Fig. 1. 
Hair from the body of Potamogale velow.—A, one of the longer hairs, magnified about ten diameters; B, a por- 
tion of one of the shorter and ner hairs, magnified about 40 diameters to show its structure; a‘, a piece 
from near the middle of the narrow basal portion of A; a’, from the middle of the broad terminal lamina ; 
and a’, the terminal portion of the lamina: the last three magnified about 40 diameters. 
attaining a length of nearly two inches, and inserted so obliquely that their tips are 
nearly an inch behind the ears; a few stiff bristles also arise from the cheeks, a little 
below and in front of the ears. The underside of the muzzle is clothed towards its 
