1 ] /2 Reply to the Minute of Capt. Munro. [Nov. 



not Pallas's ; and I venture confidently to assert that 1 should (in all proba- 

 bility) have corrected this inadvertence as well as the other. It is my general 

 practice to look carefully over all matters of this kind when I receive the 

 printed proofs for revisal ; and I do not think that trivial errors of the sort 

 are very often to be met with in my published papers. Indeed, with species 

 so familiarly known as the above two are, it is a mere matter of form to cite 

 the name of the author of the nomenclature ; and I maintain that it is most 

 unfair, on the part of Capt. Munro, to argue that the laboured part of the 

 MS. was carelessly executed, because notices of such species as the common 

 European Crane were written out of hand, and I chanced to say " Grus 

 cinerea, Lin. ;" the identification of the bird remaining, of course, unaffected. 



Capt. Munro himself commits a little oversight of the kind, when he says 

 — " The name of pi. II, fig. 3, can at best be but a guess," &c. &c. He 

 alludes to pi. Ill, fig. 3, (this, however, may be a misprint :) but there is 

 more serious reason to complain of his mistaken surmise about the guess- 

 work, when, if he had taken the trouble to read what I had written on the 

 subject, he would have found the words — " Identified from a skull, with the 

 skin and fur on, among the specimens transmitted to Calcutta by Sir A. 

 Burnes :" — there being, besides, another and perfect skin belonging to Capt. 

 Hutton in my possession at the time I wrote this, and which I have by me 

 to this day. I am entitled, therefore, to retort that Capt. Munro's minute 

 is carelessly and hastily written, or he would not have made such a misrepre- 

 sentation. 



" PI. IV, fig. 2," he says, " has no trouble taken with it, although it is 

 supposed to be a new species." This is another mistaken surmise, on the 

 part of Capt. Munro. I gave the subject full consideration : and having 

 satisfied myself that the ensemble of its characters accorded with those of no 

 described species of Mustela, I deemed it sufficient to say — " This species 

 should be distinguished by the uniform whiteness of its under-parts and limbs, 

 and rather lengthened tail having no black at the extremity ;" which, with 

 the coloured figure before the reader, marked " Mooshkoormah, nat. size one 

 foot long," is, I still think, amply sufficient. I should be sorry, however, to 

 found a name upon such a figure, and merely marked it thus — " Mustela — ?" 



Respecting the Moosh-i-baldar of Nijrow, plates VI and VII, I beg leave 

 to retain the opinion I expressed, that it is probably a new species (vide also 

 Journal for August last, p. 866). I think it probable that I have seen more 

 specimens of Sciuropterus fimbriatus than my friend and old correspondent 

 Prof. Schinz of Zurich, whose recently published work on the mammalia, 

 referred to by Capt. Munro, is not in the Society's library, nor was there a 

 copy of it in Calcutta at the time I wrote the notice referred to. It would 

 therefore have been more friendly, on the part of Capt. M., to have called 



