Isidore GEOFFROY SAINT-HILAIRE (1805-1861). Description of a new genus of carnivorous mammals under the name of Protèle. ([Paris, A. Belin, 1824]); 18p. in-4, paperback, contemporary mute cover, handwritten title on upper cover (without engraved plate). One of the first publications by Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, then aged 19. In this study, taken from Mémoires du Muséum d'histoire naturelle, t. XI, 1824, the author describes a new mammal from the Cape of Good Hope, which he calls Protèle. It is a digitigrade carnivore closely related to civets and hyenas. The memoir includes: Bones of the head; lower jaw; teeth; trunk; limbs; final considerations. [Agassiz III, p. 38, no. 4; Engelmann I, 373]. This animal had been sent to the Museum by the traveler-naturalist Pierre-Antoine Delalande, who traveled through South Africa from 1818 to 1820, before dying in 1823 from illnesses contracted during his travels. Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire pays tribute to him by naming this mammal Proteles Lalandii (Protèle Delalande). Autograph letter signed on the back cover: "Monsieur Brongniart, membre de l'Institut, etc. Hommage de profond respect. I.G.S.H.". Naturalist and geologist Alexandre Brongniart (1770-1847) was one of the founders of stratigraphic paleontology; he also carried out some zoological work, notably on reptiles.