.Ianiahy 4, 1895.] 



SCJENCK 



19 



in wliicli till' ■ IJurrowing; S(|uiiTel ' of Lewis 

 & ("lark was mailc the tj-pc of a new genus 

 and species. Aitixuiu/x brachiiira.-^ This ani- 

 mal had bei'ii named Ardamys cohi7nbiatnt!< 

 hy Old two years ]ireviously ; f and was 

 afterward erroneously referred to the genus 

 Ci/numi/f — likewise proposed by Rafinesqne 

 for one of Lewis & Clark's animals. Several 

 yeai-s ago I sliowed that the animal in ques- 

 tion is a true ground .squirrel or spermo- 

 ])hile, X ^>iil^ refrained from reinstating Rafin- 

 i'sque"s genus AnUonyx because it was then 

 believed that a still earlier name would be 

 found. A somewhat exhaustive search 

 through the literature, however, has failed 

 to bring to light anything earlier; hence it 

 seems necessary to publicly reintroduce 

 A>ii.'<onyx as the jn'oper generic name for the 

 group of mammals now commonly referred 

 to Speriitopluhi.''. 



THK K.^RLIEST -VVAILAliLK NAME FOIi THE MOUN- 

 TAIN GOAT. 



It has been customary of late to refer the 

 Mountain Goat to the genus Mazama of Ra- 

 linesque.§ But Mazaina was based prima- 

 rily ou the Tanumazume of Mexico, which 

 Ralinesque called M. tenia, and which has 

 been since showni to be a deer.|| The next 

 .species mentioned by Rafinesque is our 

 Mountain Goat, which he named 31. dor- 

 mta. But under this species he makes 

 the following unequivocal statement which 

 seems to have been overlooked : " This spe- 

 cies, with the following [il/. gericca. which is 

 really the same animal] and the Mazamn 

 pnda [of Chili] . will form a particular sub- 

 genus (or pcrhai)s genus) which I shall call 

 Oreamiiog. distinguished by the horns .slightly 



*Am. Monthly Miigiizine, II., 1817, 4.5. 

 tOutlirie's Geoirrai>tiy, 'JilA m. Ed., II., 181,), 292 

 and :iO:j-304. 



J Mammals i)f idalio, N. .Vm. Fauna, No. 5, .July, 

 1891, 39-42. 



SAm. Montlily Mag., II., 1817, p. 44. 

 II Biologia Ci'ntmli-.Vmi'ricana, Mammalia, IS&J, 

 p. 113. 



curved liai'kwards or outwards, often rough 

 or annulated. and long hair, besides living 

 in mountains." (Am. Monthly Mag., II., 

 1817, 44). In view of these facts there 

 seems to be no escape from the adojttion of 

 the name Oreamnos as the earliest available 

 generic name for the Mountain Goat, which 

 is the type and only known species of the 

 genus, the ' -1/. pxida ' being a South Amer- 

 ican deer. The full name for the species 

 is Oreamnos monfaniis (Ord) 1815, and the 

 type locality is the Cascade Range, near the 

 Columbia Ri\er, in Oregon or Washington. 

 C. Hart Mekriam. 



W.VSHIXGTOX. 



THE SEED OF A CIIASGE OF BASE IX THE 

 STUDY OF XOHTH AMERICAS OUTIIOI'TERA. 



Some twenty years ago one of the very 

 acutest and most industrious of modern 

 entomologists, the late Carl Stal, of Stock- 

 holm, began the publication of a Re- 

 censio Orthopteroruin. In it and in kindi-ed 

 papers he had within fi\e years laid the 

 foundation of an entirely new system in 

 nearly every family of Orthoptera, oflering 

 novel and taxonomically important but 

 easily overlooked points of structure for 

 subdivisions of a high order. A great deal 

 of work has been done since then (the num- 

 ber of species has perhaps doubled), and it 

 has been mainly upon the lines laid dowTi 

 by him, but in greater detail. 



Most American students of Orthoptera, 

 however, have been very poorly acquainted 

 with these modern studies, and the result 

 is that, with a distressing wealth of unde- 

 termined sj)ecies. new forms have been de- 

 scribed and referred to genera of ancient 

 name, a j)rocedure which in many cases has 

 given little or a wrong impression of the 

 real aflinities of the insects in question, and 

 it has now become impossible to correlate 

 American and European work. Something, 

 indeed much, has been done by European 



