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JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY 
came from India, but no definite place of origin is mentioned for any 
of the several specimens mentioned by them. Hence for the next 
half century Buff on’s “La Mangouste” was believed to be an Indian 
species. It was not till 1835 that Daubenton’s plate and description 
were recognized as based on the banded mongoose of Africa, currently 
known in technical literature as Crossarchu^ fasciatus (Desmarest). 
In 1803 E. Geoffroy, in his ‘Catalogue des Mammiferes du Museum 
nationale d’Histoire naturelle’ (Paris), redescribed ‘La Mangouste’ of 
Buffon and Daubenton from the specimen which served as the basis of 
the original description, under “La Mangouste de 1’ Inde, Ichneumon 
mungo,’’ giving its distinctive characters as “Pelage varie de roux et 
de noir, par zones transversales ; queue pointue; pieds pentadactyles.” 
Among his citations are “La Mangouste, Buff. Daubt. t. 13, pp. 150- 
160, pi. 19;” “Viverra mungo, Schreber, tabl. 116;” ‘‘Viverra mungo, 
Lin. Gmel., p. 84, pi. 7.” Then follows a detailed description, its 
“patrie” (“Les indes orientales”), the number of the specimen in the 
catalogue of the Museum (“No. ccxxiv”), followed by the remark: 
“Individu qui a servi de sujet pour la descript, precedente, et celle de 
Buffon.” The identity of the original La Mangouste is thus thoroughly 
established. 
Desmarest, in his ‘Mammalogie’ (I, 1820, p. 211), gave essentially 
the same description, based doubtless on the original type-specimen, 
under the names “Mangouste a bandes, Herpestes mungo Three 
years later (Diet. Sci. nat., XXIX, 1823, p. 58) he changed the tech- 
nical name to Herpestes fasciatus, because the name mungo was not 
“classical.” He repeats the geographical error: “La mangouste a 
bandes est particuliere a I’lnde.” Fischer (Syn. Mamm., 1829, p. 
163), six years later, under Mangusta mungo, says: “Hab. in India 
orientali.” In fact, the real habitat of La Mangouste, alias Mangouste 
a bandes, was first made known by Ogilby in 1835, when in an account 
of a collection of mammals collected in Gambia (Proc. Zool. Soc. 
London, 1835, 101), he says: “Mr. Rendall has brought over speci- 
mens of two Herpestes, one of which, the Herpestes Mongos of Lin- 
naeus, very well figured and described by Buffon (Hist. Nat., tom. 
xiii, tab. 19), deserves to be noticed, for the purpose of correcting the 
habitat of the species, which, upon Buffon’s authority, has hitherto 
been given as India, but which Mr. Kendall’s specimens clearly show 
to be the west coast of Africa. The mistake originally arose from Buf- 
fon’s having identified the Mangouste a bandes, the species under con- 
sideration, with the Mongos of Kaempfer, unquestionably an Indian 
