390 MR. R. I. POCOCK ON THE EXTERNAL 



In 1876 (Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Plulad. pp. 20-23), J. A. Allen 

 described the genus Bassaricyon and remarked : " As the species 

 [5. gahbi] differs more from either Nasua or Procyon than the 

 latter do from each other, it seems to form a type quite as well 

 entitled to rank as a subfamily of the Procyonidpe as do either of 

 the others, and may hence be called Bassaricyoninfe." 



In 1883 (Eucycl. Brit. (9) kv. p. 441), Flower repeated his 

 classification of 1869 with the addition of Bassaricyon to the 

 Procyonidfe and of Ailuropus to the Ursidse. 



In 1885, Mivart (P. Z. S. 1885, pp. 392-394) adopted Flower's 

 views, with one or two important exceptions. He admitted only 

 two families, the Ursidfe and Pi'ocj^onidse, fusing the Ailuridae 

 with the latter and relegating Ailuropus to a place alongside 

 Ailurus. His Procyonidfe, therefore, were grouped as follows : — 

 (1) ProcyoninsB [Procyon, Nasua, Bassaris, Bassaricyon, Cerco- 

 leptes) ; (2) Ailurinaj [Ailurits, Ailuropus). It may be noted 

 that after comparing the dental and cranial characters of Ailurus 

 and yiiluropus, he summed up by saying " .... so that on the 

 whole it appears to me that there is more decided natural affinity 

 between Ailuropus and Ailurus than between Ailuropus and 

 Ursiis." 



Mivart was, I believe, the first author definitely to assign 

 Ailurus and Ailuropus to the Procyonidre. Nevertheless, when 

 Flower and Lydekker published their volume on the Mammalia 

 in 1891, they quoted Blanford as the authoritj' for the opinion 

 they adopted that Ailurus belongs to that family. Ailuropus 

 they retained in the Ursida3. 



Similarly, in their paper upon J^luropus, published in 1901 

 (Tr. Linn. Soc, Zool. viii. pp. 161-173), Lankester and Lydekker 

 do not appear to have consulted Mivart's paper or to have been 

 acquainted with his views ; and the result w^as that Lydekker 

 put forward a classification of the Procyonidte identical in eveiy 

 particular with that of Mivart. 



Trouessart (Oat. Mamm. Suppl. pp. 183-184, 1904) referred 

 Ailuropus and Ailurus to the Uivsidae, grouping them in the 

 subfamily Ailurinaj as opposed to the Ursinaj containing the 

 genera of true bears. The Procyonidse he divided into two 

 subfamilies, the Potosinne for Potos (olim Cercoleptes) and the 

 Procyoninae for Bassaricyon, Bassariscics, JS^asua, and Procyon. 

 "With the substitution of Potosinaj for Cercoleptinae, this classi- 

 fication is the same as that published by Trouessart in 1898 

 (Oat. Mamm. i. p. 248). 



In 1914, Bardenfleth (Mindeskrift, etc., for J. Steenstrup's 

 Fodsel, Oopenhagen, no. xvii. pp. 1-15) reconsidered the question 

 of the affinities of Ailurus and Ailuropoda, and, deciding that the 

 resemblances between them are purely adaptive, left the former 

 in the Procyonida^ and adopted Flower's view that Ailuropoda is 

 an aberrant member of the TJrsidge. The author tabulates in 

 three columns, devoted respectively to Ailurus, Ailuropoda, and 

 Ursus, no fewer than 58 characters by which these genei^a may 



