Engraved for Barr’s Buffon.
FIG. 133. Elephant.
FIG. 134. Rhinoceros.
We have now only to examine the nomenclature of Linnæus, which in this article is much less erroneous than in many others, for he suppresses one of the three species of Seba; but he should have reduced them to one. Besides, he employs the distinctive character of the toes behind without claws, which none but Tyson had observed. The description which Linnæus gives of the opossum as the marsupialis, seems to be a good one, and agreeable to Nature, but he is in an error when under the name of opossum he designs an animal different from his marsupialis, upon the authority of Seba, acknowledging, however, that this opossum had no claws to the toes behind, whilst they are very visible in the figures of Seba. Another error is, considering the maritacaca of Piso, as the same animal as the carigueya, whilst these two animals, though mentioned in the same chapter, are mentioned by Piso as two different animals, and he describes them one after the other. But his greatest error is in making two different species of the marsupialis and the opossum; they have both, according to Linnæus, the pouch, the hind toes of their hind feet have no claws, are both natives of America, and only differ in this respect, by the first having eight paps, and the second only two, and the spot above the eyes more pale. These characteristics cannot be sufficient to distinguish them as distinct species; for the first can scarcely be called a difference; nor can any thing be established as fixed or certain, in regard to the order and the number of the paps, since they vary in the same species of most animals.
From this examination, which we have made with strict impartiality, it appears, that the philandre, opossum, seu carigueya Brasiliensis, and the philander orientalis maximus of Seba; those of M. Brisson, and the marsupialis and opossum of Linnæus are all of them the same animal, which is our opossum whose natural climate is South America; and who was never seen in the East Indies, but when transported thither. Upon this subject, some uncertainty still remains in regard to the taiibi, which Marcgrave does not mention as an animal different from the carigueya, but which Johnston, Seba, Klein, Linnæus, and Brisson, have presented as distinct from the preceding. In Marcgrave the two names of carigueya and taiibi are found in the same article, where it is said, that this animal is called carigueya in Brasil, and taiibi in Paraguay. There is afterwards a description of the carigueya taken from Ximenes; and then another is given of the animal called taiibi, by the Brasilians; cachorro domato, by the Portuguese, and hooschratte, or the rat of the wood, by the Dutch. Marcgrave does not say this is an animal different from the carigueya, but on the contrary, considers it as the male of that species; and it appears clearly, that the male and female opossum were called taiibi in Paraguay, and that in Brasil they gave the name of taiibi to the male, and that of carigueya to the female. Besides, the difference between those two animals, such as it is indicated by their descriptions, is too inconsiderable to conclude they are not the same species. The most essential is, the colour of the hair, which in the carigueya is yellow and brown, and grey in the taiibi, the hairs of which are white at their bottom, and brown or black at the extremities. It is therefore more than probable, that the taiibi is the male opossum. Mr. Ray seems to be of that opinion, when speaking of the carigueya, and the taiibi. Yet, notwithstanding Marcgrave’s authority, and the rational doubt of Ray, Seba gives the figure of an animal, under the name of the taiibi; and says, at the same time, that this taiibi is the same animal as the tlaquatzin of Hernandes; this is adding error upon error; for even according to Seba, his taiibi, which is a female, has no bag under the belly; and Hernandes gives to his tlaquatzin this bag as a particular characteristic; consequently the taiibi of Seba cannot be the tlaquatzin of Hernandes, as it has no pouch, nor the taiibi of Marcgrave, since it is a female; it is certainly, therefore, another animal badly designed, and badly described, to whom Seba thought proper to give the name of taiibi, and which he confounds with the tlaquatzin of Hernandes, which as we have said before, is our opossum. Brisson and Linnæus have, in regard to the taiibi, literally followed Seba; they have copied even his error in regard to the tlaquatzin of Hernandes, and both, have made an equivocal species of this animal, the first under the name of philandre of Brasil, and the second under that of philander. The true taiibi of Marcgrave and Ray, is not therefore the taiibi of Seba, the philander of Linnæus, nor the Brasilian philander of Brisson; nor are the two latter the tlaquatzin of Hernandes. The taiibi of Seba (supposing his existence) is a different animal from all those treated of by the above authors, and ought to have had a particular denomination, and not been confounded with the taiibi of Marcgrave, which has nothing in common with him; besides, as the male opossum has no pouch, it is not surprising that they have been taken for different animals, as that the female is called carigueya, and the male taiibi.