Chap. VI. THE POTAMOGALE VELOX. 117 



The 28tli of December was a happy day to me ; 

 for I succeeded in what I had been long wishing for, 

 the acquisition of specimens of the curious otter-hke 

 animal Potamogale velox. It was one of my most 

 interesting discoveries on my former journey, and I 

 had given a description of it which was published in 

 the ' Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural 

 History for I860' (vol. vii. p. 353). I had been 

 unable to bring home more than a skin of this animal ; 

 and when it was made the subject of one of the un- 

 generous attacks made at that time upon me, I was 

 unable to produce evidence, in a skeleton or speci- 

 men of the perfect animal, of the truth of the account 

 I had given of it. I had examined the living animal, 

 and had described it from remembrance as allied to 

 the otters. But my critic, from an examination of 

 the skin, only ridiculed my statement, and declared 

 that it did not even belong to the order under which 

 otters are classed, but was a rodent animal. He pro- 

 posed even to do away with the name I had given it, 

 and to call it Mythomys, in commemoration of my 

 supposed fabulous statement. It may be imagined, 

 then, how glad I felt in obtaining two specimens of 

 the Potamogale. I preserved the skeletons as well 

 as the skins of both, and wished that I could at once 

 have sent them to London to vindicate my statements.* 

 Some weeks afterwards, when at Mayolo, I obtained 

 four more specimens. 



* Independently of my specimens, an example of the Potamogale velox 

 came into the hands of Profussov Alhnan, of Edinburgh, who was the first 

 to announce that I h id accurately de&cribed and classified the animal. See 

 Professor AUman's Memoir in the 'Transactions of the Zoological Society,' 

 vol. vi., pt. L, p. 1. 



