ALLEN — AFRICAN CARNIVORA 
29 
species (the Herpestes griseus of authors), and still commonly called 
by that name in Upper India, where many natives and Europeans 
keep it in a semidomestic state, for the purpose of destroying vermin. 
• • • • 
Thomas, in 1882, in his important paper ‘On the African Mon- 
gooses’ (Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1882, pp. 59-93, pi. iii) said, under 
Crossarchus fasciatus (1. c., p. 91): “This species by its locality, and 
not C. zebra, no doubt represents the early-known ‘Viverra mungo’ 
which was said to come from the ‘East Indies.’ No cross-striped 
Mungooses, however, are known from India, and the original speci- 
mens must have been obtained from the Cape Prob- 
ably, however, tame examples were sometimes brought down to Cape- 
town, where they would be seen by the earlier travellers.” Thomas 
was so fully convinced that the Viverra mungo Gmelin is the Crossar- 
chus fasciatus of later writers that he felt called upon to explain in a 
footnote his reason for ignoring the rule of priority in this case and 
accepting instead of mungo, as follows: “This name ^ mungo’ 
is so utterly barbarous, and that of fasciatus so well known, that I 
think we are justified in ignoring it and using Desmarest’s classical 
and appropriate term” (1. c., footnote to p. 90). 
The status of Viverra mungo ( = La Mangouste of Buff on and 
Daubenton) has a vital bearing on the correct application of the ge- 
neric name Mungos, revived in 1907 to replace Herpestes Illiger (1811). 
It also has an equally important bearing on the specific name of the 
‘ Common Mongoose’ of India. 
The genus Mungos, like many of the early genera of post-Linnean 
origin, was introduced rather informally and without much detail by 
E. Geoff roy and G. Cuvier in their ‘Memoire sur une nouvelle division 
des Mammiferes’ in the ‘Magasin Encyclopedique’ in 1795. This 
memoire is stated by the authors to be merely a sketch or outline to be 
amplified later, and that some of the genera are presented provisionally. 
The higher groups are only briefly characterized, and their content 
indicated by an enumeration of the genera, designated only by ver- 
nacular names, followed by technical names in parentheses, of the 
species respectively referred to them. The following are examples 
from the Plantigrades (1. c., p. 184) :“.... les ours (ursus, L.); 
les ratons (ursus lotor, L.) ; les coatis (viverrae nasua, narica, tetradactila 
et vulpecula, L) ; les blaireaux (ursus meles, etc) ; .... les man- 
(viverra ichneumon et mungos) : . . . .” 
