4 
ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS. 
History of the Kingdom of Chili. This writer speaks 
of the Arda, which is the Spanish word for a Squirrel, 
as a species of Rat or Campagnol, of the size of a Cat, 
found only in the province of Copiapo, moderately 
docile, and covered with ash-coloured wool, as close 
and delicate as the finest cotton. 
But this confusion of species becomes tolerable if 
compared with another into which the same author 
has fallen when he speaks of the Chinche, the most 
insupportably offensive of all stinking animals, as 
having a remarkably soft fur, which is made into 
coverlets for beds. The responsibility, however, for 
the latter error must rest with Buffon; who, after 
quoting Feuillee's excellent description of that abomi- 
nable beast, adds : " it appears to me that the same 
animal is indicated by Acosta under the name of Chin- 
chilla, which is not very different from that of Chinche." 
How this great naturalist could have been led to con- 
found two animals so essentially distinct in every 
particular, of one of which he had a specimen in good 
preservation, while the skins of the other, mutilated it 
is true, but still distinctly recognisable, might probably 
have been seen in the warehouse of every furrier, we 
are at a loss to conjecture. The circumstance itself 
affords a striking proof of the obscurity in which the 
history of the Chinchilla was then involved, when the 
mere similarity of sound in the names was the solitary 
argument advanced in favour of so unfortunate a con- 
jecture. The error was corrected by D'Azara, who is, 
however, himself mistaken in regarding the Chinche 
of Feuillee and Buffon as his Yagouare, and who adds 
nothing to what was already known with respect to 
the true Chinchilla. 
Molina's Essay on the Natural History of Chili was 
originally published in Italian at Bologna in 1782. In 
