Bangs.] 530 [May .5, 
2. Soba, Museum, vol. 1, p. G8, pi. 42. 
3. Kay, Quad., p. 181. 
Hernandez gives a figure of an animal with a ])an<led or 
annulated tail that lie calls yzquiepatl, and states the color to be 
that of burnt maize ; he then e.x;patiates for nearly a page on the 
awful odor of the animal, which is worse than anything in nature, 
and which is due to a yellow tluid that is ejected as a means of 
defence. He says further that there are two additional kinds of 
this little fox, one distinguished by many white stripes wliicli lie 
calls yzquiepatl no. 2 ; the other by one white stripe on each side 
reaching to the end of the tail. This he calls conepatl. 
It seems to me that Hernandez is quite clear. His yzquiepatl 
is probably the Nasua, yzquiepatl no. 2 is Spilogale, and conepatl 
either Conepatus or Mephitis. The only mistake he made was 
in attributing the peculiar means of defence of the skunks to the 
Nasua as well. 
Seba gives a long and accurate account of the Nasua, and the 
Nasua alone, principally taken from one he kept alive for a whole 
summer and which was sent to him from Surinamo. There can 
be no doubt of either his plate or description. Among other 
things he mentions the habit of rooting in the ground Avith 
the snout Uke a pig. 
Ray simply quotes from Hernandez. 
B}^ a strict application of the rules of nomenclature it seems 
that Linnaeus's specific name of mephitis might fall to the lot of 
one of the Nasuas. Schrieber in Saugethiere, 1778, under the 
name Vioerra ynephitis Linn6 describes and figures (Plate 121) 
an animal that leaves no doubt as to what he had ; not only was 
it the eastern skunk, but his remark that the tail was half the 
length of the head and body ties his name down to the north- 
eastern skunk. 1 Unfortunately, he had no right to use the Lin- 
naean name of a Mexican animal, whether determinable or not, for 
a North American skunk, and we must pass on to the next name 
proposed which is Vioerra mephitica Shaw, Museum Leveria- 
num, 1792. 
Shaw figures an animal, undoubtedly a skunk, of the genus 
Mephitis and gives a very brief description but with no meas- 
1 The true Mephitis mephitica (Shaw) of tliis paper occupying the Canadian and 
Hudsonian zones of the east. 
