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THE AMERICAN NATURALIST [Vol. XLIX 



written from the newly discovered world, by Dr. Chanca, 

 companion of Columbus, was not adequately edited and 

 annotated until after four centuries had passed. Ves- 

 pucci's letters also are deserving of mention in this con- 

 nection. 2 



In view of the fact that several communications have 

 appeared in Nature during the past year concerning the 

 first mention of the opossum in literature, it may not be 

 inopportune to trace the pedigree of some of the early 

 illustrations of this animal, both in maps and in printed 

 works. At the same time a few of the older printed de- 

 scriptions of American marsupials may be noticed. And 

 we will observe first of all that the earliest reference to 

 the common American opossum is found in the famous 

 collection of voyages published in 1504 by Angelo Trivi- 

 giano, under the caption of "Libretto de Tutta la Naviga- 

 tione de Re de Spagna, de le Isole et Terreni Novamente 

 Trovati." In Chapter XXX of that work it is mentioned 

 that a live specimen, taken by the Pinzons in Brazil in 

 1500, was exhibited in Granada. 



In Decas II of Peter Martyr's "De Nove Orbe," pub- 

 lished in 1511, occurs the first published description of 

 the American tapir; and immediately following this the 

 opossum is referred to in these words : 



There is also an animal which lives in the trees, feeds upon fruits, 

 and carries its young in a pouch in the belly; no writer as far as I know 

 has seen it, but I have already sufficiently described it in the Decade 



was then stolen from me to be printed. 



In 1547 and 1548, and again from 1549 to 1555. Hans 

 Stade of Homburg, Hesse, passed some time in Brazil, 

 and wrote or dictated an account of his strange adven- 

 tures, which was published at Marburg in 1557. Under 

 the caption of "Servoy," Chapter XXXII, we read: 



2 See Fernandez de Ybarra in Journ. Amer. Med. Assoc. for September, 

 1906, and in Misc. Coll. Smithson. Inst, for the same year. Vespucci s first 

 letter (1497) was republished in facsimile by Varnhagen in 1893. having 

 for frontispiece a design by Stradanus dating from about 1580, in which 

 various South American animals are well represented. Mention occurs in 

 this letter of the iguana, puma and ocelot from the coast of Tampico. 



