17. PIERONITBA. 115 



Museum of the Eoyal Institution of that town, which had heen col- 

 lected in Demerara by Mr. Edmondson, and presented to the Museum 

 by my friend Mr. Sandbach. I brought it before the Natural- 

 History Section, and named it Pieronura Sandbachii. 



A description of the specimen was published in ' Loudon's Maga- 

 zine of Ifatuxal History ' for 1837, i. p. 580. 



Mr. Gould kindly made me a drawing of the specimen during the 

 meeting, which was engraved, with some notes on the genus, in the 

 ' Annals and Magazine of Natural History' for 1839, ii. p. 285, 1. 14. 

 This plate is copied in "Wiegmann's ' Archiv ' for 1838, p. 392, t. 10 

 (which did not appear until late in 1839). 



Professor Wiegmann at first doubted the distinctness of the genus 

 from EnJiydris, but after he received the plate admitted that the 

 genera were distinct. He proposed to alter the name of the genus 

 from Pteronwa to Pterura. 



The Liverpool specimen has remained unique up to this time, and 

 Pteronura was the only well-established genus of Mammalia wanting 

 in the British-Museum Collection. 



In the latter end of 1867 the British Museum received from Dr. 

 Krauss the skins of a large female Otter and its cub, under the name 

 of Lutra hrasiliends, which had been obtained in Surinam by Mr. 

 Kappler. 



As I had lately published a monograph of Mmtelidce, including 

 the species of Lutrince, in the 'Proceedings of the Zoological Society' 

 for 186B, these specimens were entered in the register, and put away 

 for future examination. But the skin which Mr. Bartlett exhibited 

 at the Meeting of the Society, Jan. 9, 1868, having excited fiew 

 interest as regards the specimens of Otters, the skins in store were 

 examined, and it was soon seen that the Otter from Surinam was not 

 the true Lutra hrasiliends, and was very nearly aUied to, if not the 

 same species as, the skin that Mr. Bartlett had exhibited. The spe- 

 cimen chiefly differs from Mr. Bartlett's skin in the tail being thick 

 and strong, and convex on the upper and lower surface, nearly as in 

 other Otters ; so that the flatness of the upper and under surface of 

 the prepared skin was doubtless produced by the preparation or 

 dressing of it ; and it was this excessive flatness that gave the tail 

 such an artificial appearance. I believe that the tail of a Common 

 Otter (L. vulgaris') might artificially be made to resemble the taU. of 

 that prepared skin. That there was considerable cause for scepti- 

 cism I think is proved by the experiment that Mr. Bartlett himself 

 made to see if the cord-like margins on the side of the tail were not 

 artificially made and would not disappear in soaking and stretching. 



As soon as I discovered the Surinam Otter I thought it ought to 

 be compared with the one from Demerara. I therefore wrote to the 

 Secretary of the Royal Institution of Liverpool to request that they 

 would allow the specimen, which I originally described, to be sent 

 to the Museimi for me to examine it, and show it to the Zoological 

 Society. He, most kindly and UberaUy, immediately granted my 

 request, and, on a second appUcation, allowed me to extract the 

 skull of the specimen, in order that there might be no doubt on the 



i2 



