534 Bulletin American Museum of Natural History. [Vol. XXXIV, 
Cervus rufus of F. Cuvier ! (1817), but this name is preoccupied, as already 
shown (supra, p. 523) by Cervus rufus Iliger (1815), based exclusively on the 
red brocket of Paraguay, the Gowazoupita of Azara. The only other name 
that has been applied to it is Cervus (Subulo) doluchurus Wagner, based on 
the larger of the two brockets distinguished by G. Cuvier.’ Hitherto 
it has almost universally been known as Cervus (or Subulo, or Coassus, or 
Mazama) rufus of F. Cuvier, but recently attempts have been made (as 
indicated in the citations given above) to substitute therefor Erxleben’s 
Moschus americanus (1777). In order to ascertain the real basis of this 
name I have looked up and collated all of Erxleben’s citations under this 
species, and am convinced that Moschus americanus should be accepted 
as a valid name, on the basis of Seba. In order, however, to show its exact 
basis, and also to illustrate the nature of the descriptions and records left 
by the eighteenth century authors cited by Erxleben in this connection,’ 
I give below literal transcripts of all the passages bearing on the question, 
as follows: 
1731. Des Marchais. 
Biche de Guiane Des March. voy. III p. 281. 
Des Marchais’s account‘ of his ‘Biche Guiane”’ occupies about two pages, the 
substance of which is that this animal is a small deer, without antlers in either sex. 
There is not a word that has any value in a distinctive sense. About one third of 
the account is given to a statement of why the French inhabitants of Guiane (7. e., 
Cayenne), call the animal biche. Another third relates to its size and conformation, 
and the other third to how it is hunted and the value of the flesh and skin to its cap- 
tors. ‘The essential part, from a taxonomic point of view, is the following (from p. 
282): 
“Tls sont trés vif, trés legers 4 la course, timide 4 l’exces. Ils sont couverts 
d’un poil fauve rougeAtre, asse court & épais. Ils ont le tete petite, décharnée, les 
oreilles minces, le col long & arqué, les pied fourchu, le queue court, la vué per- 
CANCE ces 
This is not definitive, vaguely indicating a small reddish deer as occurring in 
Guiana. 
1, Cuvier (/. c.) says ‘‘ Les tétes de ces deux espéces [his Cervus rufus and Cervus nemori- 
vagus], envoyées par M. Martin au Muséum d’Histoire naturelle, en ont bien fait connoitre 
les caractéres.’’ G. Cuvier (Il. c., p. 53) further says: ‘‘MM. Martin et Poiteau nous ont 
envoyé en abundance, des grandes forét de Cayenne, sous le nom de biche de bots,’’ etc. These 
included both large and small specimens, small ones having also been sent from Brasil by 
Laland and Auguste de St. Hilaire, but nolarge ones. Pucheran (l. c., p. 474) makes the same 
statement. 
2 Ossements fossiles, 2d ed., IV, 1823, p. 53. For extended comment on the large and 
small brockets distinguished by G. Cuvier, and the later complications connected therewith, 
see Pucheran, l. c., pp. 474-477. 
3 Hight in number, ranging in date from 1731 to 1771, the authors being: 1 Marchais, 
1731; 2, Seba, 1734; 3, Klein, 1751; 4, Brisson, 1756; 5, Hallen, 1757; 6, Diction. Anim., 
1759; 7, Bancroft, 1769; 8, Pennant, 1771. 
4 Voyage du Chevalier Des Marchais en Guinée, Isles voicines, et 4 Cayenne, fait en 1725, 
1726, 1727.... Par C. R. Pére Labat. Vol. III, 1731, pp. 281-283. 
