M. de la Borde has sent me an account of three opossums, which he kept in a cask at Cayenne; in most particulars it agrees with the description already given; he says they are very easily tamed, and feed upon fish, flesh, bread, &c. that those he had possessed no disagreeable smell, but that there are two species, the one which has so strong an odour as to be called stinking by the inhabitants, and that their flesh is not good to eat. M. de Vosmaër, to his description of the flying squirrel, has added a note, in which he says, "the _coes-coes_ is the _bosch_ of the East Indies, the _philandre_ of Seba, and the _didelphiè_ of Linnæus. M. de Buffon has confined this animal to the new world, and positively denies its existence in the East Indies; but I can assure that learned naturalist that Valentin and Seba said no more than the truth, in affirming they were common to both Asia and America, for I have had a male and female sent me from the East Indies, and Dr. Schlosser, at Amsterdam received one of the same species from Amboyna. The principal difference between those of the East and West Indies is in the colour of the hair, the male of the former being of a yellowish white, and the female a little darker, with a brown line on the back, and their ears are less than those of the latter. The heads also of the West India species are much shorter than those of the East." I have not the smallest reason to doubt M. Vosmaër's receiving two animals from the East Indies, under the name of _coes-coes_, but am of opinion the differences which he points out are sufficient to induce us not to consider them the same species as the opossums. I, however, confess the justice of his observation upon my making the three philandres of Seba the same animal, when, in fact, the third is a different species, and found in the Philippine islands, and possibly in many parts of the East Indies, where it is called _coes-coes_, or _cous-cous_. Christopher Barchewitz gives a description of this animal found in the island of Lethy, and from the similarity it plainly appears, that the East India _cuscus_ is of the same genus as the American opossum; but that is no proof of their being of the same species; and I am still of opinion, that the animals of one continent will not be found in the other, unless they have been transported thither. I do not mean to deny the possibility of the same climates in the two continents producing some animals of exactly the same species, provided other circumstances were the same; I am not, however, treating here of possibilities, but of general facts, of which we have given many instances in our enumeration of animals peculiar to the two continents; and, upon the whole, I am inclined to consider the coes-coes of the East Indies as an animal whose species approaches very near to that of the opossums of America, but that they have similar differences, to those which are observable between the jaguar and leopards, which of all animals peculiar to