1772. =nivalis= (_Mustela_), Forster, Philos. Trans., London, 1772:373. This is one of the early applications of this name to American weasels of small size, made in the belief that they were taxonomically the same in America and Europe. Linnaeus, Syst. Nat. (12th ed.) 1:69, 1766 is the authority for the name [_Mustela_] _nivalis_, and the Province of Vesterbotten, Sweden, is regarded as the type locality. The name is in use today for the common weasel of Europe and parts of Asia. Animals of the species _nivalis_ are intermediate in size between _Mustela erminea_ and _Mustela rixosa_. The name as used for American animals by some authors who wrote later than Forster did, probably was composite in that these authors may have applied the name to the small weasels of North America and thus may have intended it to apply not only to _Mustela erminea cicognanii_ but also to females of _Mustela frenata noveboracensis_, and conceivably to both sexes of _Mustela rixosa_ of any American subspecies. 1813. =Brasiliensis= (_Mustela_) Sevastianoff, Mem. Acad. Imp. Sci. St. Petersburg, 4:356-363, table (= plate) 4. This name was proposed for a weasel brought to St. Petersburg by Capt. Krusenstern on his return from a voyage around the world. The animal was said to have come from Brazil, but to judge from the description, came instead from México, Central America, or west of the Andes in South America, and was based on some one of the subspecies of _Mustela frenata_. Although the name was in use for more than 60 years it was shown by Merriam (1896:27) to be unavailable because it was preoccupied by _Mustela brasiliensis_, a name earlier used by Gmelin (Syst. Nat., ed. 13, p. 93, 1788) for a South American otter. 1815. =vulgaris= (_Mustela_), Ord, Guthrie's Geography as reprinted by Rhoads in 1894, vol. 2, p. 291. This use by Ord is one of the earliest applications of this name to American weasels, in the belief that the smaller weasels of North America and Europe were zoölogically the same; [_Mustela_] _vulgaris_ seems originally to have been proposed in 1777 by Erxleben on p. 471 of vol. 1 of his Syst. Regni Anim., for the weasel of the temperate part of Europe and to be a synonym of _Mustela nivalis_ Linnaeus (1766). Probably the name as used by Ord was composite in the sense that he may have intended it to apply to females of _Mustela frenata noveboracensis_ as well as to one or both sexes of _Mustela erminea cicognanii_ and, if he ever saw them, to the two sexes of _Mustela rixosa_ (one or several subspecies).