MR.  E.  T.  BENNETT  ON  THE  CHINCHILLIDiE. 
45 
animal,  unaccompanied  by  description,  in  Mr.  Griffith's  Translation  of  the  '  Animai 
Kingdom,'  of  the  existence  of  which  I  was  not  then  aware. 
In  August,  1 830,  Mr.  Gray  published,  in  the  second  Number  of  his  '  Spicilegia 
Zoologica,'  the  generic  and  specific  characters  of  Chinchilla  lanigera,  together  with  a 
description  and  figure,  the  latter  drawn  by  Col.  Hamilton  Smith  from  a  specimen 
brought  to  England  in  1827,  and  lithographed  in  1828.  In  this  notice  the  skull  and 
teeth  are  particularly  described ;  and  an  interesting  account  is  given,  obtained  from 
Mr.  Hennah,  the  gentleman  by  whom  the  specimen  figured  was  brought  home,  of  its 
domesticated  habits. 
A  fourth  original  figure  of  the  Chinchilla  was  given  by  M.  F.  Cuvier  in  the  '  Histoire 
Naturelle  des  Mammiferes,'  under  the  date  of  November,  1830,  after  a  drawing  made 
by  a  lady  from  the  specimens  in  the  possession  of  the  Society.  One  of  these  having 
subsequently  died,  Mr.  Yarrell  examined  both  its  viscera  and  skeleton,  and  laid  an  ac- 
count of  the  results  of  his  investigation  before  the  Committee  of  Science  and  Corre- 
spondence at  its  first  Meeting  in  February,  1831  ;  an  abstract  of  which  was  imme- 
diately published  in  the  '  Proceedings  '  of  that  Committee'.  From  the  '  Bulletin  des 
Sciences  Naturelles^'  for  March,  1831,  it  appears  that  M.  Van  der  Hoeven  published, 
about  the  same  time,  in  the  '  Bijdragen  tot  de  Natuurkundige  Wetenschappen^,'  (a 
Journal  to  which  I  regret  that  I  have  no  present  means  of  referring,)  another  figure  of 
the  Chinchilla,  and  that  he  also,  without  being  aware  of  what  had  been  written  on  the 
subject  by  English  zoologists,  regarded  it  as  a  distinct  genus  from  Lagostomus,  under 
the  name  of  Eriomys. 
In  the  '  Annales  des  Sciences  Naturelles '  for  August,  1832'*,  Dr.  Rousseau  trans- 
lated into  French  my  acount  of  the  Chinchilla,  from  the  '  Gardens  and  Menagerie  of 
the  Zoological  Society,'  attributing  its  date  to  1831,  which  some  of  the  later  published 
copies  of  the  volume  bear  upon  the  title-page,  instead  of  1829,  when  the  number  con- 
taining the  Chinchilla  was  published.  There  are,  however,  in  this  version  numerous 
inaccuracies,  attributable  probably  to  an  imperfect  acquaintance  with  the  English  lan- 
guage. The  paper  by  Dr.  Rousseau  himself,  to  which  the  translation  is  appended, 
contains  a  good  and  detailed  description  of  the  animal  and  of  its  skeleton,  which  he 
follows  Mr.  Gray,  Mr.  Yarrell,  M.  Van  der  Hoeven,  and  myself,  in  considering  as  a 
genus  necessarily  distinct  from,  although  closely  allied  to,  the  Lagostomus  of  Brookes, 
and  for  which  he  also  adopts  the  name  of  Chinchilla.  A  plate  giving  a  front  view  of  the 
head,  the  skull  in  various  positions,  and  the  details  of  the  teeth,  accompanies  this  paper. 
And  lastly,  M.  Goldfuss,  in  his  '  Naturhistorische  Atlas^,'  has  given  a  sixth  original 
representation  of  the  animal  under  the  name  of  Lagostomus  laniger,  Wagl.,  referring  as 
a  synonym  to  the  Eriomys  Chinchilla,  Mus.  Frankf. 
Having  thus  brought  down  the  history  of  these  three  remarkable  animals  to  the 
present  time,  I  shall  next  describe  at  length  the  conformation,  both  external  and  in- 
'  Part  I.  p.  31.  -  Tom.  xxiv.  p.  352.  ^  Deel  vi.  No.  1. 
^  Tom.  xxvi.  p.  349.  '  Th.  iii.  p.  263.  t.  290.  f.  1.  , 
