466 ON THE DIDELPUTID^ OF S,E. BEAZLL. [June 5, 



by Burmeister, plate ix., is really rare, and seems, as I mentioned 

 in my ' Mammals of Brazil,' p. 146, to be approaching extinction. 

 Till now I have only obtained two specimens in the ISerra dos 

 Orgaos, a male and a female, and hare not had the good fortune to 

 make any special observations on its habits in freedom. 



Thus six species of Didelphyidaa have come under mj' obser- 

 vation during a stay of several years in Serra dos Orgaos. Mr. 

 0. Thomas admits 24 species of this family, exclusively American, 

 therefore we note a numeric proportion of G : 24, which is ^ of the 

 whole. 



I cannot conclude these notes without calling the attention of 

 zoologists to the necessity of cancelling a species of DidcljiJiijs, 

 established on the authority of Prince Maximihan zu Wied-Xeu- 

 wied at the beginning of the present century and still admitted. 



Mr. O. Thomas writes (Catalogue of IMarsupials in the British 

 Museum, p. 366) : — 



" 23. DiDELPHTS ALBOGUTTATA (T\Taite-spotted Opossum). 



"Rather smaller than D. americana ; mouse-grey, ^^•ith many 

 rows of white spots on its back. Habitat : Brazil (Forest-region). 

 Type in the Museum of Kio de Janeiro. The above is the only 

 information as yet published about this species, of which I have 

 never seen a specimen." 



I knew what Prince Maximilian had ^^Titten about this sup- 

 posed Didelphys (Beitrage, vol. ii. p. 412), and also Burmeister 

 in 1854 (Syst. Ileb. vol. i. p. 340) and in 1856 (Eriaiit. p. 87) ; 

 and when in 1884 I assumed the direction of the Zoological 

 Section of the National Museum of Eio de Janeiro \ I sub- 

 mitted to a thorough review the small and very imperfect series 

 of Brazilian Didelphjddge preserved there. I readily found the 

 supposed D. alboguttata, an old specimen certainly dating from the 

 period of Dom Joao YI., and soon recognized it to be a specimen of 

 Dasi/UTus vivernnus, an Australian marsupial. Considering the 

 intimate relations bet^A■een the Portuguese colonies in Asia and 

 South America in former times, the presence of this Dasyurns 

 becomes explainable. The specimen still exists and is now 

 properly labelled. It is one of the most droll mistakes that ever 

 happened in zoology, and it is somewhat singular that Prince 

 Maximilian and Burmeister, both good naturalists, showed them- 

 selves liable to make such an error. Entirely incomprehensible it is 

 for me how Burmeister should make the matter still worse by the 

 words: — "Das Thier lebt im Waldgebiet, uud war Hrn. Bescke ^ 

 aus eigner Ansicht bekannt, alleiu noch nie hatte er es, in den 20 



' This position I lost in 1890, as Fritz Miiller and Herman von Ihering lost 

 theirs, through the political changes in Brazil. In spite of seven jears' incessant 

 labour, I had not been able radically to refonn the zoological collections and 

 to get them out of the bad state in which 1 found them. 



^ A collector who resided for a long time in Novo Friburgo (Serra dos 

 Orgaos), and whose name is often met with in the different works of German 

 travellers and naturalists. 



