Before re-appraising the names it is pertinent to recall that Howell's paper in 1906 on _Spilogale_ was only the second revisionary paper that he prepared. It was prepared by a man who at that time lacked much taxonomic experience, and who held to a morphotype concept. Howell worked under the guidance, in the literal sense, of Dr. C. Hart Merriam. The concept of species and subspecies held by Merriam fortunately was recorded by him (Jour. Mamm., 1:6-9, November 28, 1919). Merriam's reliance on degree of difference and his disregard of intergradation were naturally (and necessarily, we think, in Howell's work in 1906) adopted by Howell. For example, of six specimens from Point Reyes in west-central California, a place less than ten miles from the type locality of _Spilogale phenax phenax_, Howell (_op. cit._:33) assigned one specimen to the subspecies _Spilogale phenax latifrons_! _S. p. latifrons_ occurs in Oregon and in northern California--no nearer than 200 miles to Point Reyes. Howell's assignment of this specimen to _S. p. latifrons_ was not a _lapsus_, as persons with the modern (geographic) concept of a subspecies would be likely to suppose. Howell's assignment of the one specimen to _S. p. latifrons_ and the other five specimens to _S. p. phenax_ was intentional, as he told one of us (Hall). He explained that he relied upon the morphological characters of the individual animal instead of upon the morphological characters of a population of animals. To him, therefore, there was nothing inconsistent in his procedure in 1906. Also, variation that was the result of difference in age and variation that was the result of individual deviation were not understood, or at least not taken into account, by Howell in 1906, nor by Merriam in 1890. For example, Merriam selected the most extensively white specimen available to him for the holotype of _Spilogale leucoparia_. He, and Howell in 1906, used the extensiveness of the white areas of that particular specimen (see fig. 3, pl. 2, N. Amer. Fauna, 26, 1906) as a character diagnostic of the "species" _S. leucoparia_ although each of the authors had available two other specimens of _S. leucoparia_ from the type locality, and all of the other referred specimens in the United States National Museum, that were less extensively white than the holotype. The _individual specimen_ was the primary basis for the species or subspecies and one selected specimen alone often was used in making comparisons between a given named kind and some other species or subspecies. Also, be it remembered, degree of difference, and not presence or absence of intergradation, was the basis on which subspecific _versus_ specific rank was accorded to a named kind of animal. Howell wrote on the labels of some specimens of _Spilogale_ "not typical" when the individuals differed from the type specimen in features that owe their existence to individual variation, and he wrote the same words on the labels of other specimens that had