426 CONTRIBUTIONS TO A REVISION OF THE 
canadensis Schreber is a plate name published (jide Sherborn) in 1776, and is the ear- 
liest applied to this otter. It would stand (A. O. U., Canon XLII) were it not unques- 
tionably applied and intended by Schreber merely as a geographic name without refer- 
ence to its specific relations to “ M/ustela lutra Linn.” For this reason alone it should be 
discarded. Furthermore, the name Mustela canadensis was used by Schreber on a pre- 
vious plate in the same volume (Pl. No. 126) in the specific sense for the fisher. This 
plate was also (fide Sherborn) published in 1776, one year before the text, which was 
published in 1777, and the bound volume of text and plates were dated 1778. In 1777, 
Erxleben published a description of the fisher and named it Mustela pennanti, by which 
name it has been since designated by authors generally. As this name is antedated by 
the tenable plate-name Mustela canadensis of Schreber by one year, I adopt it as the 
name of the fisher of Pennant from the northeastern United States. Erxleben pub- 
lished in the same work a description of an animal which he named Mustela canadensis, 
and which Baird and Coues have considered applicable to the mink, and the accept- 
ance of the dates on the title-pages of Schreber’s (1778) and Erxleben’s (1777) works 
would give priority to Erxleben’s name and displace Mustela vison of Schreber. But 
Sherborn’s emendation of these dates makes IM. canadensis of Erxleben for the mink 
untenable, it being preoccupied by Schreber’s plate-name JL. canadensis for the fisher, 
as stated above. Besides this fact, Dr. Merriam considers that Erxleben’s description of 
M. canadensis also applies to the fisher and the marten in such a way as to make it 
untenable for any species. 
Returning to the search for a first name for the otter, we find Kerr’s name, J. cana- 
densis of 1792, to be unavailable because he placed it under the old genus Mustela. Next 
in order appears to be the name hudsonica, which is accredited to Lacépede, in an article 
on the Canadian otter in the first edition of the Nouvelle Dictionaire d Histoire Natur- 
elles, which is signed “Desm.” Ihave not examined this reference personally, but am 
indebted to Dr. J. A. Allen for a transcript of these facts from the only known copy of 
the work in America which appears to be available, belonging to the library of the 
American Museum of Natural History. In agreement with my previous rendering of 
manuscript names, and on the supposition that Desmarest was the real author and pub- 
lisher of this name and description of hudsonica, I cite it as Lutra hudsonica (“ Lacé- 
pede,” Desmarest). I agree with Dr. Merriam that this name should stand for the otter 
of eastern Canada. Frederick Cuvier seems to have been the first to place this animal 
in the genus Lutra under the Lacépéde-Desmarest name hudsonica in 1831. 
The Lataxina mollis of Gray and the Lutra destructor of Barnston are no doubt 
synonyms of hudsonica. 
Specimens Examined.—Labrador, Okak, 1 skull ; Grand river, 1 skull ; New 
