372 CLASS MAMMALIA. 



In the Museum at Paris there is a nondescript animal, 

 which seems to differ from the Fennec principally in di- 

 mensions. It is about the size of the Common Fox. The 

 ears are preposterously large and long. The fur is an iron- 

 gray, slightly tinted with yellow ; along the dorsal line the 

 hair is rather longer than elsewhere, and darker in colour. 

 The ears are gray on the outside, with the edge black, bor- 

 dered with a few white hairs. The tail is very villose, 

 black, with some gray at the upper end. The head is gray, 

 with the forehead to the extremity of the nose blackish. 

 The belly is pale white ; the four paws black. 



It was shot by M. Delalande at the Cape, and as to all 

 its generic characters is decidedly a Dog, most probably of 

 the Vulpine section. The Baron has named it Canis Mega- 

 lotis. Major Smith added Lalandi, to distinguish it from 

 the Megalotis or Fennec of Bruce. 



This species seems to form a natural gradation in the 

 transition from the Common Foxes to tbe Fennec, which 

 appears likely to terminate the genus ; so far at least as 

 size and relative proportions may be connected with the 

 commencement or termination of any series of animals. 



In the Museum at Frankfort is a specimen of the Fennec, 

 C. Megalotis, which we are enabled, by Major Smith's kind- 

 ness, to engrave from his drawing. It was sent from the 

 interior of Nubia by the German naturalists at present in 

 that country. Professor Graetzmer and M. Temminck,' 

 after mature examination, believe this not to be the same 

 as Bruce's Fennec, but a congener. The Major inclines to 

 a contrary opinion. The skull has not been taken out, and 

 the teeth remain to be examined. 



Authors are too justly stigmatized as a jealous race, 

 an observation often verified among zoological writers in 

 particular, in the extreme eagerness evinced in describing 

 and naming new or pretended new species, and the arts 

 employed in procuring the means to do so, an abundant 

 source of repetition, inaccuracy, and confusion in zoological 



