302 MB. o. V. APiiiiT ON THE [Mar. 20, 



Grab-eating Baccoon {Procyon cancrivoms). 



Soon after I arrived in Uruguay I heard a good deal about an 

 animal called the " Mano peluda," but no one seemed to know 

 what it was. In December, when riding up to the Rio Negro, we 

 heard the name again, and stopping for an hour or two at a 

 " pulperia " a league or two south of the river, where they had 

 several very tame "bichos" of various kinds, I was deUghted 

 to find a Mano peluda. From vague descriptions I had heard on 

 the way the Mano peluda might have been a sloth, an ant-eater, or 

 a monkey, but I found (as Mr. C. J. F. Davie, of Montevideo, had 

 suspected) that it \^ as a Eaccoon. To the latter gentleman I am 

 indebted for a flat skin of this species, and through his kind offices, 

 just before I left the country, I was enabled to procure a living 

 specimen from Florida, where they are not ven/ rare. This 

 example reached England safely, and was pronounced by the 

 authorities at the Society's Gardens to be identical ^\•ith the 

 Crab-eating Eaccoon. I do not think the presence of this 

 animal in Uruguay has been previously recorded. The specimen 

 at the " pulperia," so wonderfully tamed by Don Luis or one 

 of his sous, amused us by eating Huntley and Palmer's biscuits, 

 which it held between its paws, sitting up meanwhile on its 

 haunches. It moved rather in kangaroo fashion, but was less 

 upright ; the liead is very pointed and foxy in appearance, 

 though broader in proportion at the base and shorter. It had 

 been captured in the neighbourhood, but was said to be rare. One 

 or two people spoke of the desperate fights these animals engage 

 in with dogs. The specimen I brought home lived chiefly on beef 

 and was a great water-drinker. 



Skxjnk (ConejMtus mapurito monzoni, subsp. nov.). 



The Skimk which I procured in Uruguay is distinct in 

 coloration from the typical White-backed Skunk (C. mapurito) 

 , which (subject to much variation) iahabits South America gene- 

 rally, and is described as being from 18 to 24 inches long, 

 with a short tail of from 9 to 10 inches, and having the back 

 white, sometimes marked with a median black stripe, and the tail 

 white. In Mr. Hudsoa's 'Naturalist in La Plata' a Skunk is 

 figured menacing a dog (p. 123), with the back, as far as can be 

 seen, white, and a large bushy white tail laid over the animal's 

 back and reaching nearly to its head. The Uruguayan Skunk has 

 the whole of the body and the tail blackish brown, varying a 

 little in shade, with a narrow white line (not more than three 

 quarters of an inch wide at its thickest part and narrowing 

 towards each extremity) on each side of the body, starting on the 

 top of the head (where they are joined together) and reaching 

 sometimes to the root of the tail, but in other cases not so far. 

 I killed a good many Skunks and saw others, but they all answered 

 to this description. I only once saw one with any M'hite at all on 

 the tail. This was at the end of autumn, when we killed one 



