THE CHINCHILLA. 
5 
the preface the author candidly confesses that his mate- 
rials are not sufficiently complete for a general Natural 
History of the country. They appear indeed to have 
consisted partly of the recollections of a vigorous mind, 
and partly of such imperfect notes as could only be 
made use of in the v^ay of hints to recall to the memory 
some of those minor points which might otherwise have 
escaped it. It is obvious that under such circum- 
stances, however careful the writer may have been to 
avoid mistakes, it is impossible to place in his descrip- 
tions that implicit confidence to which his acknowledged 
good faith would otherwise entitle him. In this work 
he describes the Chinchilla as a species of the Linngean 
genus Mus, under the name of Mus laniger, by which 
appellation it was received into Gmelin's Edition of the 
Systema Natures, and continued to be known among 
naturalists, until M. GeofFroy-Saint-Hilaire suggested 
that it ought rather to be regarded as a species of the 
genus separated by him from the Rats under the name 
of Hamster. This opinion was immediately adopted 
by zoologists, and seems to have been taken up by 
Molina himself, in a second edition of his Essay, pub- 
lished in 1810, which contains some trifling additions 
to his former article on the Chinchilla. We proceed to 
translate from the latter those passages which relate 
to the subject. 
" The Chinchilla," he says, " is another species of 
field-rat, in great estimation for the extreme fineness 
of its wool, if a rich fur as delicate as the silken webs 
of the garden spiders may be so termed. It is of an 
ash-grey, and sufficiently long for spinning. The little 
animal which produces it is six inches long from the 
nose to the root of the tail, with small pointed ears, a 
short muzzle, teeth like the house-rat, and a tail of 
moderate length, clothed with a delicate fur. It lives 
